


Sins of the Father

by sparrowshellcat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-27
Updated: 2011-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 23:30:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 38,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1567919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowshellcat/pseuds/sparrowshellcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Children are going missing across the country, with no trace, and no evidence of where they went. Sam and Dean don't really think it's much of a hunt, but Bobby is convinced it is, so they go out to investigate. There is literally no evidence, so they're pretty convinced that he's wrong, until they realize that they know the mothers of each of the missing children. </p><p>Biblically.</p><p>Which is when they discover what happens when a pissed off arch-angel becomes determined to have vessels for Michael and Lucifer available at any costs, and skips back in time to mess with birth control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For more fic and art, you can follow me on Tumblr! [sparrowshellcat](http://sparrowshellcat.tumblr.com)

  
 Children are going missing across the country, with no trace, and no evidence of where they went. Sam and Dean don't really think it's much of a hunt, but Bobby is convinced it is, so they go out to investigate. There is literally no evidence, so they're pretty convinced that he's wrong, until they realize that they know the mothers of each of the missing children. Biblically.

Which is when they discover what happens when a pissed off arch-angel becomes determined to have vessels for Michael and Lucifer available at any costs, and skips back in time to mess with birth control.

  
 

\---

  
 

“DO YOU KNOW THESE MEN?”

Andrew hesitated, about to walk right past the bulletin board – it was usually filled with advertisements for sports teams he didn't want to be on and reminders for tests he didn't want to write, but this was... unusual. It had been printed on a colour printer that was running out of ink, and the bottom half of the two photos were faded out, but the faces were still clear.

He stepped back, and considered it seriously. Under the pictures, it read, “If you know them or think your parents know them, call this number immediately: 608-845-4623.”

Andrew frowned. The one guy in the picture on the right, he'd never seen before. He seemed to be glowering at the camera, shaggy brown hair making him look younger than he probably was. 

The other guy, though...

He was leaning on the front hood of a shiny black, classic car, in a beat up leather jacket, head lifted, giving the camera a sort of “so what?” look. _That_ face he'd seen before, though he wasn't sure he knew where from.

He figured it'd probably be smarter to keep walking. Forget about the weirdly familiar face.

But instead, Andrew jerked the poster off of the bulletin board, and shoved it in his backpack. He couldn't just ask about it, that would just be weird, and would probably raise a lot of questions, but something ab out the man's face, that “so what” look, haunted him.

Shoved in his backpack, he actually forgot about the poster until he went to do his homework Sunday night.

Laying it out on his bed, he smoothed it, carefully, frowning. “DO YOU KNOW THESE MEN?” the headline kept asking, and Andrew was sure he didn't – but he knew the face from somewhere, and he was sure that must mean his mother or father knew him. Otherwise he never would have seen that face. So he searched the house, and on top of the bookshelf in his mother's office, he finally found what he was looking for.

It was a little metal frame, with a faded Polaroid picture inside. It had been taken by the woman in the photo itself, clearly – who was obviously his mother, though not much older than him when it was taken. 

Beside her, smirking at the camera, was the man from the poster, the one with the devil-may-care smirk. He was younger, but he was wearing that same beat up leather jacket, and in the corner of the photo, he could just see the headlights and part of the bumper of that same car he was leaning on in the poster, too. His mother knew the guy. 

Holding the frame, he stepped into the kitchen, and said, quietly, “Mom?”

She looked up from the frying pan , tasting the spaghetti sauce. “Hey, Drew. What's up?”

Stepping up to him, he held up the frame. “Who's this?”

His mother hesitated, and cleared her throat, stirring the pot again. “That's me, Drew. Come on, I know I've gotten older since then, but I don't look _that_ different, do I?”

“Not _you_ , mom. The guy.”

She hesitated, again, and took the frame, running her thumb along the edge of it. “An old friend.”

“Oh yeah? What's his name?”

“Dean.” She said, abruptly, sitting the frame down on the island, just a little too hard. “He saved my life, once, back when your dad and I were still dating. I haven't seen him in years. Why are you even _asking_ about him, Drew?” She asked, voice tight.

“Just curious,” he lied, picking the picture back up. “Thanks, mom.”

He didn't believe her, of course. Some friend? Sure. But he was in a picture frame in his mother's office, so he must have meant _something_ more than just some friend. But what was he supposed to say – he was on this poster I found? For all he knew, this guy was a mass murderer or something.

Throwing the photo onto his bed, on top of the poster, he flopped beside them, sighing.

His ceiling light flickered slightly, then started getting suddenly brighter and brighter. Andrew blinked up at it, confused, but soon he had to look away. It was absolutely blinding bright, and it just seemed to be getting brighter, until finally he had to throw his arm over his eyes, and still it got brighter.

The bulb burst with a pop, a fine shower of glass raining down onto the bed – which was empty. Andrew was gone.

“Drew?” His mother called from downstairs. “Drew! Dinner's ready! Andrew?”

He didn't answer, naturally.

He was gone.

  
 

\---

  
 

Dean was dozing in the armchair, arms crossed, a book on the mother of all the things open on his lap. It hadn't been terribly helpful, even when he was awake, but now that he was asleep, it was even less useful. Across the room, Sam was flipping through a book with about as much enthusiasm, frowning slightly.

Stepping in through the living room door, Bobby set a mug of coffee – Irish – in front of Sam, then kicked Dean's ankle. The young man jumped, yelping, and dropped the book. “Son of a bitch, Bobby... trying to scare the crap out of me...”

“Coffee,” he grunted, offering the second mug.

“God, I take it back, Bobby, you are a saint,” Dean groaned, taking the mug from him, gratefully, sipping at it before bending to pick up a book. “So what's the occasion?”

“Need you sharp. Found a hunt.”

Sam sat up a little straighter. “Oh yeah? Another of Eve's monsters?”

“We don't know,” Bobby admitted, sitting heavily at his desk. “I've noticed the stories for a few weeks now, but wasn't sure if they were actually hunts... kids are going missing.”

Dean frowned, sipping at his coffee. “One town?”

“No,” Bobby shook his head. “Scattered through the continental U.S.”

“How old are the kids?” Sam asked, standing to move closer to the older man's desk.

“Between fourteen and four months.”

He blinked. “The pattern definitely doesn't have anything to do with _that_ , then. Shit. Well, what have the kids got in common, then?”

“The kids?” Bobby shrugged. “Nothing, far as I can tell.”

“Doesn't sound like a hunt, Bobby, sounds like kidnappings. I mean, kids go missing, right?” Dean shrugged. 

“No, wait.” Sam held up a hand, brows furrowed. “Sulphur? Hex bags? EMF?”

“No, no, and no.” Bobby sighed heavily. “Look, I don't even know if it's _actually_ a hunt or not. S'just that the kid of some old friends of mine is one of the missing, and when a hunter's kid goes missing, you ask questions.”

Dean frowned. “Hunters with kids?”

“Happens, sometimes.” He rolled his eyes, and tugged a file folder towards him, flicking through it for a minute. He tugged out an old photo, faded, of a young couple, the wife holding a toddler on her hip. “This is them, though 'bout ten years ago.”

“Hey,” Dean snagged the photo from his fingers. “This is the Wallaces! Judy and – what's his name... Keith?”

“Yeah,” Bobby nodded, frowning. “You knew 'em?”

“Sure, dad went on a hunt with Keith, oh, what, long time ago. Me and Sammy stayed with Judy, but she didn't have a kid back then. Damn, haven't seen them in, what, thirteen – no, fourteen years. How old's their kid?”

“Thirteen. Almost fourteen.”

Sam arched a brow, and crossed his arms, considering his brother. “What, is this another Ben case?”

Dean flushed. “Man, she was _married_.”

“So?”

“So shut up, asshole, that's what. They were a nice hunter couple. Let's leave it at that and stop suggesting I got kids everywhere, jeeze. What are Judy and Keith saying, anyway, Bobby? Hunter's kids go missing, they gotta have a theory?”

“Judy and Keith died five years back, fighting a rugaru.” Bobby said, and both of the boys sobered. 

“Oh.” Dean said at last.

“So where was she taken from, then, Bobby?” Sam asked, delicately.

“Kid's been living with her grandmother since then.” Bobby sighed, and tapped the picture. “Name's Orpah, she's thirteen, and near as I can tell, is a perfectly normal teenager. Knows the deal, obviously, but seems to just be a normal kid, you know? Nothing weird.”

“But she's missing, so naturally you think it _might_ be something,” Sam said.

“Exactly.”

“Where the other kids go missing from?” Dean asked, scanning the desk, which was a jumble of books and papers, for any articles that might be about the disappearances. Bobby handed them over, and he flipped through, humming to himself. “Shit, Sammy, the town with the spider people. A kid's missing from there.”

“Let's save that one for last,” he said, expression slightly pinched. Dean could hardly blame him.

“Omaha.... hey, Sammy, that's where Meg rode you hard for a week and put you away wet.” He wriggled his eyebrows at his brother. “I'm sensing a trend, here, it's all towns where you were a douche bag.”

“Oh, hey, look, Vermont, the town where you ditched me for three days when I was seventeen.” Sam said dryly. “You know what the real pattern is? All these kids are disappearing from towns where you made fun of me, you asshole.”

“More accurately...” Bobby snatched the articles from both of them, flipping through himself. “They're from towns where you've stayed.”

“So?” Sam frowned.

“So, all these kids are going missing from towns where there've been hunts before. Idjit.”

Dean blinked. “The same kind of hunts?”

“No, I don't think so, but that might not be it, either. Say Eve's takin' 'em. She might be takin' kids that have been 'touched' by something nasty, you know? Like their ma got eaten by a windigo, or they were born in a town where a rawhead used to have their nest. Sort of trackin' em based on what happened before.”

“Sins of the feather deal.” Dean said, frowning. He didn't like this at all.

“Maybe. Could be randoms. Balls.” Bobby rubbed at the bridge of his nose, frowning. “Look, we're goin' into this thing blind, boys. Just... best bet is going to the most recent disappearance and lookin' for any possible traces of connections to past hunts.”

“Sure,” Sam stood. “Where's the most recent disappearance then?”

Bobby flicked through the articles. “Rapid City.”

“Rapid City?” Dean repeated, glancing up at his standing brother. “We ever been there? Sounds familiar.”

“You idjit, it's half an hour down the road.” Bobby said, without looking up from the article. “That time you got teabagged by the Seven Deadly Sins, I had to save you idjits there.”

Dean blinked. “...did you just say that we got _teabagged_?”

“Someone's been letting him on the internet again,” Sam smirked, and clapped Dean's shoulder. “Well, we have all the info, let's go.”

"I'll stay here," said Bobby, "And see what else I can dig up. Who knows, I might be able to dig up something interesting. Maybe there's more to the story than just previous hunts. Knowing your luck, is related to you, not to the hunts themselves."

 

"Thanks, I don't know what we do without you, Bobby," Sam said, sighing softly.

 

"Damn, Sammy, you are such a girl," Dean laughed, as he clapped his brother on the shoulder. He seemed much more at ease these days, than he had before, but that was probably the soul talking, all things considered. It was nice to have his brother back, and himself again. Even if himself was a whiny little bitch, most of the time. Better the devil you know, so to speak.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

So far, the hunt had been frustrating, and remarkably been unsuccessful. This was sort of to be expected, after all, they hadn't even been sure it was going to be a hunt at all. Now they were looking, it sort of looked like one, but they couldn't figure out what kind of hunt it was, which was sort of frustrating. The deeper they dug into these families, the weirder it seemed.

 

Rapid City was sort of quiet town, really, there really wasn't much there. But it was always those small, innocent sort of towns, where the really bad shit went down.

 

Except... 

 

Neither could remember a hunt happening here. Oh sure, they remember being here, remembered spending the night, Dean remembered celebrating what little he had left of his life, back when he was waiting for Lilith to reap his soul. They'd been here, but the little pattern that Bobby had worked out didn't seem to follow. Unless, as he had suggested earlier, the pattern wasn't about the hunts - it was about the Winchesters. Of course, they didn't believe it. But more than enough things, really, had happened because of them. But assuming it right off the bat? Well, that was sort of big headed, wasn't it?

 

"I don't get it," Sam said, with a heavy sigh. He fiddled with the tie that went with his suit. He sort of looked like a bit of a douchebag, but seeing as he was supposed to be a federal agent, douchebag was kind of a job requirement. (At least it was if you asked a Winchester.) “I'm not seeing a link.”

“The only think I can figure is that, well, we've _been_ here before.” Dean sighed softly, running his hand through his hair. “That's all I got.”

“Far as we know, there's no pattern.” Sam sighed. “This might not even be a hunt, Dean . There are other things we should be focusing on. Like finding a way to kill Eve.”

“Maybe... but if we give up, you're gonna break my heart with those puppy dog eyes of yours, if it turns out that monsters were kidnapping and – _hello,_ nurse.” He doubled back to look back in the hospital room they'd just passed, looking the nurse who was standing at the bedside, back to them, up and down. “Wouldn't mind getting myself admitted if she was taking my blood pressure...”

“You are unbelievable,” Sam sighed, and rolled his eyes.

Dean smirked back at him.

Of course, that was when the nurse turned around, and cried, “Oh!” softly when she spotted them there.

Sam cleared his throat, and straightened.

But the woman wasn't looking at Sam – she was gaping at Dean with an absolutely shocked expression. Then a dark look crossed her face for a moment, and she stormed forward. Dean's eyes widened, and he backed up a couple steps, warily. “About time you got here!” She said, voice sharp. “You know Cindy asked for you _specifically_ when we called into the agency, and they told us that they had never _had_ an Agent Nugent? I mean, I know you said you were working on some big secret cases and all, but you _know_ us, you could at least help!”

Dean exchanged a brief look of “WTF?” with his brother, then smiled genuinely, disarmingly, at the woman, eyes flicking only very briefly to her name tag. “Katie. Hey. Well, I'm here now, aren't I? Why don't you tell me what's going on, how you see it?”

Katie sighed, shoulders slumping, and said, “Well, Cindy and her husband... they're just torn up. What kind of sicko steals babies from their houses without any trace?”

“Yes, Cindy's daughter, she's how old now?” Sam asked, tugging a notebook out of his jacket.

Her eyes narrowed at him, suspicious.

“Ah, Katie. This is my partner, Agent Danza. We're investigating the disappearances together.” Dean smiled, disarmingly. 

“Oh. Well... she's almost, what, three and a half, now? A month younger than Damien, cause she was born early... a preemie, you know?”

Sam blinked, flipping through his book, confused. “Damien? I don't see a - “

“Oh, no! Damien's not missing,” She laughed, awkwardly. “He's my son. Damien and Skye are about the same age, only a month apart, but Skye was a preemie, so she's a  _ lot _ smaller. She's, ah - “ She dug in the pocket of her scrubs, and tugged out a folded piece of paper. Unfolding it, she revealed it to be a missing child poster, offering a $25000 reward for any information leading to the finding of the missing child. The picture itself was of two toddlers, grinning up at the camera, all bright smiles, clear green eyes, and blond curls.

“They look like twins,” Sam said, considering the poster for a moment. “You mind if we take this?”

“No, go ahead, I have about a hundred of them, trying to hand them out to everyone.” She smiled tightly, eyes too bright. “And we've been told that before. Cindy and I, we're identical twins, so it's not surprising that our children look alike, especially since they're so close in age.”

Dean suddenly coughed, turning away for a moment.

“You all right?” Sam asked, surprised.

“Yeah, just fine. Sorry. All that dry hospital air. So. Katie, you say there was no evidence?”

“None,” she agreed. “That's what the cops say, anyway.”

“Well, we're not the cops, Katie.” Dean smiled, charmingly, and Sam subtly rolled his eyes. It seemed so easy for his brother, to smile and just have the woman they were interviewing just absolutely melt. This girl turned slightly towards him, expression honest and genuine. “And you know that I work on the top secret cases, so I imagine you can guess what that means. So come on, Katie. Tell us what you know.”

She hesitated. “Well, there is  _ one _ thing.”

_ Bingo _ .

“What is it?” He asked, smiling with that lady killer smile, and her defences absolutely crumbled.

“The light bulb in the nursery was broken,” She said, lowering her voice, like she was telling a secret. “Not just broken, though... shattered. Pulverized, really, just this fine... glass dust. I've never seen anything like it, but the cops said it was just a broken light bulb, that it had nothing to do with Skye being missing. And maybe that  _ is _ nothing, but... it's sorta something, isn't it?”

“It could be,” Sam agreed, jotting that note down.

“Thank you, Katie,” Dean touched her elbow lightly,and Sam didn't miss the light brush of his silver ring on her skin, just in case. But Katie didn't react, didn't even seem to notice. “I'll give you my card, if you think of anything else, you can - “

“Oh, I've got it.” She giggled at that. Actually  _ giggled _ . “But thanks, anyway.”

Sam smiled tightly. “Thanks for your time, Katie. We'll let you get back to work.”

“Oh, yeah.” She flushed, and reluctantly tore her eyes from Dean. “Work.”

They bid her a good day, then headed down the hall. They weren't heading for the medical records to see if Skye Kellestine had ever had any brushes with the supernatural that might have ended her up in the hospital, like they'd originally been planning, but towards the car. They had to tell Bobby about the broken glass, the light bulb.

“What was  _ that _ , man?” Sam asked, as they headed down the stairs.

“Dude!” Dean laughed. “The Doublemint Twins!”

“ _ What _ ?”

“Last time we were in Rapid City, I'd just sold my soul, remember, and was really trying to live it up. One last hurrah. Well, I got really drunk in a bar, and picked up a pair of  _ smoking _ hot twins by telling them I was basically Mulder.”

Sam gaped at his brother's back as they hurried down the steps. “You are unbelievable, you know that?”

Dean snorted, and pushed the doors open, stepping outside, smirking. “Maybe. But it means this kid  _ does _ fit a pattern, anyway.”

“You slept with their mother.” Sam arched a brow.

“ _ No _ , that I  _ knew _ their mothers, Sammy, we talked about this. Judy Wallace was like, a paragon of virtue, or whatever. But I knew her – and I knew the Doublemint twins. So maybe they're people that are affected by hunters, not hunts themselves.”

Sam considered that, frowning. “Is it hunters in general?”

“What do you mean?” Dean slid into the driver's seat of the Impala, tugging on his tie to loosen it, clearly relieved, and dug in his pockets for his phone.

“Well, is it that they know hunters, or that they know, well,  _ you _ ?”

“Assuming kids are going missing cause of me, Sammy?” Dean snorted. “Be a bit of a dick move for me to assume that, don'tcha think?”

“Look, I'm just saying... that's the only link we have so far.”

“Weird coincidence.” He shrugged.

“Dean... you know that 'weird coincidences' don't just  _ happen _ to us. It's always another hunter we pissed off, or a djinn looking to kill us cause we killed their father, or a demon that's got a hard-on for you, or an angel angry that we're not living up to our bloodlines or something. Nothing just  _ happens _ to us.”

“First time for everything,” he smirked, and held up a finger, holding his phone to his ear. “Bobby, hey! We might have something.”

  
 

\---

  
 

Sam groaned when the cell phone on the bedside table started to ring, and reached out clumsily, blindly, really, to pick it up off the table. Sometimes, he missed being soulless and never having to sleep. Flicking the phone on, blearily, he answered, “Hello?”

From the other bed, Dean threw a pillow at him. It didn't even make it off of his brother's bed. “Tell 'em it's too early for this shit.”

“Sam.” Bobby said on the other end of the phone line.

“Bobby, it's three in the morning. We've been driving all night. What is it?”

“Another kid's missing.”

_ That _ woke Sam up,and he sat up properly, finally, rubbing his eyes. “How long ago?”

“It was reported about twenty minutes ago, I've been keeping a finger in the amber alerts nationwide.... this one's in New Orleans. You ever been there on a hunt or anything?”

“New Orleans, Dean? Ever been there?”

He sat up, running his hand through his hair, yawning. “Yeah, I did a big voodoo case there, back when you were at geek school. Why? What's in New Orleans?”

“Missing kid. Reported about twenty minutes ago.”

“Shit.” He slid out of the bed, clumsily, and grabbed his jeans, tugging them on, bouncing slightly as he tugged them up. “Well, guess we're headin' downstate, then.”

“Any details, Bobby?” Sam asked, sliding out of bed himself.

“Not much, yet. Seven year old kid, boy by the name of Jack Washington, went missing from his bed. Apparently he'd had the flu, so his mother was sitting up with him. She was sleeping in the armchair in the corner, and said that she was woken by a bright light.”

“Like... a bright light...” Sam said slowly, blinking, glancing at his brother. “Was the kid alien abducted?”

“Aliens are fairies, Sammy!” Dean called. “Fairies!”

He cringed.

“No, not a naked woman with wings kind of light.” Bobby said, grumpily. “She said it was like the overhead light turned brighter and brighter until she couldn't look at it anymore, then it burned out. And when she found a flashlight, she realized the kid was gone.”

“Did she say whether or not the light bulb burst?”

“Yeah, said there were little bits of glass everywhere.”

Sam tugged his jeans on, frowning, holding the cell phone between his cheek and his shoulder. “Well, that matches the pattern... any chance Dean knew the mother?”

“Dunno. But I expect so, considering what I got when I ran her name.”

He paused. “What'd you get, Bobby?”

“Eight years ago, her brother died – then showed up at the family house six days later. She called the cops, freaking out because her dead brother was knocking at her door, shuffling around and acting like - “

“A zombie.”

“Yeah. The story got printed as a 'ain't it wacky' sorta piece. Looks like Dean showed up in town to hunt down the zombie, and prolly the voodoo witch that made 'im.”

“Yeah,” Sam muttered, closing his eyes. “What was the woman's name?”

“Jamariah Washington. Good lookin' woman, if you believe the newspapers....”

“Thanks, Bobby, not sure if I  _ really _ needed to know that. What's the address?” He jotted it down, and the woman's name, then said, “Thanks, Bobby, we're on the way,” and hung up.

“So what're we going as?” Dean asked, leaning out of the bathroom, still running the electric shaver across his jaw.

“I dunno, what'd you tell Jamariah Washington you were?” He asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned in the bathroom door. “Woman whose brother showed up as a zombie, eight years back?”

Dean blinked at him, then slowly grinned. “Jamariah Washington, huh?”

“Why do I have a sinking feeling that you offered her comfort after her brother became a zombie?”

“Don't read too much into it,” he pointed at him. “Just cause I slept with Jamariah and the Doublemint twins does not mean I have a cursed dick. Still never did it with Judy.”

“You have a dick of death.” Sam said, dryly.

“I am really uncomfortable talking about my junk with you, Sammy, and besides, the pattern doesn't work for all of them. I do not have a cursed dick, every woman that sleeps with me doesn't die, unlike  _ some _ of us in the room.”

“Very funny.” He muttered. “So. Genius. Who are we being?”

“Honest truth?” He smirked. “Archaeologists.”

“Archae - “ Sam gaped at him. “ _What_?”

“I'm serious!” He laughed, digging in his duffel bag, and finally tugged out a battered leather glasses case. He tugged out a pair of horn rimmed glasses, and slid them on, grinning impishly up at his younger brother. “I totally pulled the Indiana Jones routine on her and said I was digging up old New Orleans crypts for evidence that smugglers used to use the mausoleums for hiding their ill-gotten gains, which was, by the way, actually true. How do I look?”

“Like an absolute dork.” Sam said, at last.

“Ah. Perfect.” He grinned. 

“...you're actually serious. You wore idiotic fake glasses and told her you were an _archaeologist_.”

“Doctor Daniel Boone, PhD.” He grinned.

“...you have a _GED_.”

“Well, _she_ doesn't have to know that, does she?” He snorted. “Now get dressed, Poindexter. You'd think you'd love the idea of dressing up like a fruitcake and pretending to be smart.”

He sighed. “...do I have to wear glasses?”

“Obviously.” He rolled his eyes, and thrust the second pair he'd had shoved in that case at Sam, a pair of wire rimmed, rectangular frames, which Sam reluctantly took. “Smart people always ruin their eyes. It's all that reading.”

“ _My_ eyes are fine.”

“Then clearly you aren't quite as smart as you think you are, genius.” He smirked. “Go on, put 'em on, let's see.”

He sighed, and slid them on. “...they feel really weird.”

“You _look_ really weird, “ Dean grinned, amused. “Which is perfect. You own any tweed?”

“ _Tweed_?”

“Yeah, you know, tweed, patches on the elbows...”

“No.”

“Shame.” He smirked, amused, and went out to tug a slightly rumpled suit jacket from his bag, tugging it on. “Oh well. Jeans and a suit jacket work well enough. Smart guys always dress like idiots.”

He sighed, heavily. “Your stupidity astounds me.”

“Hey. Doctor Boone. PhD. You are just my lowly assistant professor.” He smirked, amused. “Let's go.”

The drive was a short one. It was like they'd known they'd need to get to New Orleans as fast as possible (though of course they hadn't, actually) because they'd settled for the night in a hotel in Louisiana, close to the disappearance. Close enough that when they pulled up to the Washington residence, a small duplex in a slightly run down neighbourhood, there were still police cars parked outside.

Dean tugged off his glasses to polish them on his tie, then slid out of the car. “Let's go.”

The officer at the door tried to stop them from just walking in, naturally, but suddenly a woman cried, “Wait! Let them in!” just as Dean was trying to explain why in the world an archaeologist would have any right to enter a crime scene.

A tall, lean woman, clearly the kind that worked out on a regular basis and you wouldn't want to mess with hurried towards them. Her long black hair was tied back in dozens of tiny braids, and some of them had bits of purple woven into the little braids themselves. It was a very youthful sort of look,and clearly, she wasn't that old of a woman. But right now, the expression on her face made her look forty years older.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, and then she threw her arms around Dean, hugging him as she buried her face in his neck.

He hugged her back, clearing his throat.

“Sorry, ah... come in.” Jamariah leaned back, wiping at her eyes, quickly. “It's just... with Jack missing...”

“We heard,” Dean said, gripping her elbow lightly as he directed her away from the police officers and into a quiet hallway. “What can you tell us? What happened?”

“Well...” she took a deep breath, hugging herself. “Jack wasn't feeling well, so I was sitting up with him.”

“And you were woken by a bright light?”

Jamariah glanced at Sam, briefly, then nodded. “Yeah. It was like his light had overloaded, or there was a surge or something, it was so bright. Then there was a little 'pop', and it went dark. I grabbed his flashlight, but I have to climb up on his bed to reach the light, right, so I checked to see where he was on the bed, and...” She gestured, helplessly. “He wasn't.... he was just gone.”

“And you're sure he was there before?” At her sharp look, Dean held up his hands. “These are questions I have to ask, you know that.”

“He was there,” she sighed.

“Can we see his room?” Sam asked, gently.

“Uh... I think the police are in it, but we can see...”

It took a bit of convincing, but Sam and Dean were finally let in. Sam gathered a few of the shards of glass, and frowned. “They're very brittle.”

“So?” Dean glanced at him.

“It's like it was superheated,” he explained, watching as another fragment crumbled in his fingers. “It's the same sort of thing that used to happen in spontaneous combustion cases.”

Dean gaped at his brother. “Are you suggesting these kids burned up?”

“No, there's no other signs, and there would be ash and things. I'm just saying that there was something supernova hot here. We know anything that burns that hot?”

He considered that, frowning. “Eve, maybe.”

“We wouldn't know if she did.”

“True.” He paused, then shrugged. “Angels, I guess. They burned out Pamela's eyes, right, it would probably be something like that.”

“Could be.” Sam straightened. “But why would angels be taking kids?”

“Because they're dicks?”

Sam snorted softly, shaking his head as he stood, wincing slightly. “So ask Cas if angels have anything to do with it.”

“Cas doesn't just come at my beck and call, Sam.” Dean rolled his eyes.

He glanced at his brother, and smirked. “Hey, Cas.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, very funny, Sammy. I totally believe you and everything.”

The man standing behind his brother in a rumpled trench coat and tie, the man who hadn't been there a moment before, nodded his head in greeting, and said, “What did you need?”

Dean jumped, and spun. “Cas! Son of a bitch, I have a damn weak heart, remember?!”

His brows furrowed as he looked up at Dean. “...I wasn't aware you needed glasses.”

“It's for the job, Cas, shit. Look. There are kids going missing, no trace, all we've got is these burned up light bulbs.”

“And the fact that Dean slept with all the mothers,” Sam pointed out.

Cas arched a single eyebrow.

“Not _all_ of them, dammit, I didn't sleep with Judy – look, Cas, we just _know_ all the mothers. What we want to know is whether or not angels are taking these kids.”

His brows furrowed slightly. “...I don't know.”

“Well... can you use that angel mojo of yours to find out, then?” Dean threw up his hands, rolling his eyes.

“I'm _trying_ , Dean.” Cas said, with a slight growl to his voice. “They're not just going missing. Something is _taking_ them. But I cannot see what it is?”

“Something's blocking you?” Sam asked, frowning.

Cas glanced at him, then nodded, briefly. “Yes.”

“So what can black you, then?” Dean frowned, brows furrowed. “Other angels?”

“Yes. Or powerful demons. Or gods, perhaps, there are several possibilities.” Cas sighed slightly, glancing back and forth between the boys. “Unfortunately. I will look into it. How many children have gone missing?”

“Seven, last count.” Sam said, grimly. “There could be others we don't know about, too.”

“I will look into it.” Cas said, seriously.

“Thanks, Cas, and while you're at it, could - “

“He's already gone, Dean.”

“I _hate_ when he does that,” Dean grumbled, throwing up his hands. “Every time, son of a bitch.”

“Come on, you need to say good-bye to your old flame,” Sam smirked slightly. “I don't think there's much more we can get here.”

“Yeah.” He agreed, sighing.

  
 

\---

  
 

They were in northern California when Cas abruptly appeared the next time. Sam was gathering more glass shards and Dean was nursing a sore jaw – apparently Amanda Carter hadn't been too impressed when she'd tried to call the guy she'd picked up in the bar where she waitressed and discovered that his phone wasn't in service – as he walked the perimeter of the room, EMF detector out. “Still no sulphur, no trace of - “

He bumped into Cas' chest, and yelped in surprise, nearly dropping the detector. “Son of a – shit, Cas, stop doing that!”

“I looked into the disappearances.” He said, ignoring Dean's dramatics.

“And?” Sam asked.

“I don't know who is doing it.” He admitted, looking troubled by this. “But I do know who didn't do it.”

“Well, that's better than _nothing_...” Dean sighed.

“Eve has nothing to do with it. Her attention is elsewhere.” Cas frowned, stooping to pick up some of the glass shards Sam was investigating. He considered them for a moment, turning them over, slowly. “Also, it seems that whoever it is that is doing this knew that you might ask me for assistance. It is blinded only from angels. Specifically.”

“Are you saying that whatever it is that's doing this knew _we_ would be here, looking?” Dean asked, skeptically.

Cas set his hands on his knees, sighing softly as he straightened. “Yes.”

As Dean muttered about how it damn well figured, Sam asked, “What makes you say that, Cas?”

“I see things differently than you do,” he said, perhaps explaining. “I can see the links between people. Between all of these children, and their mothers, the links always come back.” He tapped Dean's collarbone, almost scoldingly. “To you. So far, each connection I have found returns to you.”

Sam cleared his throat. “Dick of death.”

Dean threw his hands up. “Is it because I slept with those women, Cas?”

“Possible.”

“Great.” He sighed heavily, then glanced at Sam as his phone rang.

“Dammit, sorry.” He dug in his pocket, glancing at the screen, confused by the called id it displayed. “Anthony Miller” sounded familiar, but he couldn't think of why. Flicking the 'accept' button, he said, “Hello?”

“Sam Winchester?”

He shifted away from his brother and his brother's angel, for at least a semblance of privacy. “This is he.”

“Hey... Sam. S'been a long time. It's Tony Miller. D'you remember me?”

His blood ran cold as he realized exactly who this was.

“It's Jessica's father.”

  
 

\---

  
 

Destiny hesitated, finger over the 'call' button for the millionth time. It was just such a stupid idea. Her mom would absolutely kill her if she knew. But her mom never had to know, did she?

Glancing at the poster on her bed, she sighed, considering how stupid this was all over again.

“DO YOU KNOW THESE MEN?”

No, she didn't. But she recognized them anyway – her mothers's junior year book was spread out on the bed, and under the “Ws” were grainy class photos that she was pretty sure were of the men in the poster. Sam and Dean Winchester, according to the tiny writing under their pictures. She might not have thought anything of it, really, except that this Dean guy had signed her mother's year book with a marker, scrawled, “ _Had a great time, babe, give me a call sometime. Dean. X._ ” then a phone number.

She'd tried the number, and really expecting anything, and like she'd suspected, no, the current owner of that number had never heard of a “Dean Winchester”.

But it bothered her.

And not just because her mother had dropped out of school after her junior year to have her and this jotted note might be the closest she'd ever gotten to finding out who her father was.

“Oh fuck it,” she sighed, and dialled quickly.

It rang for a few long minutes, so long that she was convinced that no one was going to pick up. Just as she was about to hang up, herself, a male voice said, “Hello, thanks for calling 2400 Court in Fitchburg, how can I help you today?”

“Uh.” Destiny blinked. “....I think I have the wrong number.”

“Wait!” He cried, and she hesitated. “...do you know those men?”

“I shouldn't have called,” she said, quickly, and hung up, tossing her phone further up her bed like it was going to bite her.

Panting, she just sat there staring at it for a moment, then yelped when it rang.

“I am so going to regret this,” she whispered, and picked it up. “...hello?”

“Don't hang up!” He said, quickly.

“Why shouldn't I?” She demanded.

“Because you could be in serious danger if you do,” he said, in a rush.

“Oh yeah, and if I transfer this on to five friends, I'll learn my true love's name.” She rolled her eyes. “No thanks.”

“ _Wait_.” He said again.

Destiny sighed heavily. “I'm listening, but talk fast, I'm really creeped out by this whole thing.”

“Look, the guys on the poster, do you know them?”

“No,” She said, “But they're in my mom's yearbook, she knew them.”

“You _mom_ knew them.” He breathed. “...is either one of them your father, did she ever tell you?”

A chill ran down her spine. “No, she never said.”

“But it's a possibility...?”

She licked her lips. “...the thought had occurred to me, yeah. He wrote a message in my mom's yearbook, from a while before she had me.”

“A lot before, or...”

“About seven months before.”

The boy on the other end gave a long, slightly shaky sigh, then said, “Look, my name is Michael, those guys are – they're friends of mine. But a lot of people that know them have been... well, stuff had been happening. How close are you to Fitchburg?”

“Like, a couple hours, I think.”

“Can you drive?”

“I don't have my license.”

“Not what I asked,” Michael said, and she could swear he was grinning. “Can you drive?”

“...yeah, I can drive.”

“I can give you directions, but really, you should head out here. We're all sort of gathering in one place. Strength in numbers and all that.”

“Woah, woah, woah... I am not driving out to the middle of nowhere to meet some guy I don't know because of a poster.”

He sighed. “...what's your name?”

“I ain't telling you _that_ , for all I know you're some kind of pedo!”

“So call Chris Hansen on me. C'mon.”

Destiny hesitated. “This was one of the dumbest things she'd ever done, but if there really _was_ a chance that this could lead to the information she'd been searching for ever since she was old enough to wonder why she didn't have a father. “...Destiny Bancroft.”

“Destiny. Hey. Okay, look, do you ever feel like someone's watching you?”

She shifted slightly, uncomfortable. “Sure, who doesn't?”

“Okay, but... I mean, do weird things ever happen, like seeing things no one else sees, or...?”

“Are you asking me if I'm crazy?”

Michael sighed. “No, I mean... honestly weird stuff. Things you can't explain.”

Destiny hesitated.

“You still there?” He asked, a moment later, and she could tell by the almost panicked hint to his voice that he was genuinely afraid that she wasn't going to respond. “Destiny?”

“Still here.” She sighed.

“Oh thank god...” he groaned.

“There's a woman that's been watching me.” She said abruptly. “No one ever seems to see her, but I always see her just a the corner of my eye, she's watching me, it's really creepy, and it's only been happening the last couple weeks.”

“But you've  _ seen _ her?” He asked, sharply.

“Yeah. She's always there, looking really serious, has a look like she wants to, like, study me or something. Or, like she's really angry at me, but I don't know why...”

“Has she...” he said slowly. “Has she ever  _ said _ anything?”

“Once,” she frowned.

“What'd she say?”

“' _ Sins of the father _ '.” She said, finally. “Though that doesn't really make any sense, does it?”

“No, actually, that makes perfect sense. Okay, listen to me. That woman is  _ dangerous _ , she will hurt you if she has the chance. You cannot  _ let _ her do that, because if she does get to you... shit, you'll join the whole  _ list _ of kids that have been hurt. Trust me, I have been trying to get all of these kids together... so that you don't all go missing, too.”

“Missing.” She repeated.

“Missing,” Michael said. “There are people going missing, Destiny, and they're all missing because their parents know Sam and Dean Winchester.”

That cold chill ran down Destiny's spine again. “...you really do know who they are.”

“Yeah, and people are really going missing. And I really think it's that woman who's doing it. So... look. I really think you should come to Fitchburg.”

“I really think I shouldn't.”

“Okay.” He said, quickly. “Okay, if you won't come here, that's okay. We can figure it out. But.... at least... there's some protection you can use. There are some things you can do to prevent that woman being able to touch you, okay? I know, it's going to sound absolutely insane, it's going to sound mad, but please, just... trust me on this, if nothing else. Even if it doesn't work, it won't hurt you, right?”

“...that doesn't sound very reassuring.” She said, slowly.

“I know,” he admitted, clearing his throat. “But please.... I don't want you to go missing, too, Destiny.”

Destiny frowned, sitting in silence for a long moment, then abruptly said, “Okay, Michael from Fitchburg... please tell me how the hell I'm supposed to protect myself from that woman, then. If nothing else, she'll stop  _ staring _ at me all the time, right?”

He laughed. “Yeah.”

  
 

\---

  
 

“This is weird, Sammy.”

He nodded, humming, not responding otherwise. He was staring at his phone, as though he expected the phone to hold all the secrets to the universe, though his expression was far more unfocused. 

“I mean, you're dead girlfriend's parents calling you out of the blue and all but black-mailing you into visiting?” He rolled his eyes, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, frowning slightly. “That's really weird. I mean, you don't think it's connected to... you know, this  _ hunt _ or anything, do you?”

“Jess was the youngest child in her family,” Sam glanced up at that, frowning slightly. “So it can't be connected, she didn't have any younger brothers or sisters that would be going missing.” He hesitated. “For the love of god, Dean, please tell me you didn't sleep with Jess' mother.”

“Oh for... I do  _ not _ have a dick of death! And even if I  _ did _ , I barely knew Jess, much less her parents, remember?”

Sam smirked slightly at him, and leaned back in his seat again, sighing softly. 

“So... why do you think they're trying to get you to come visit?” He frowned, glancing over at his brother, grinding his teeth, slightly. The timing just seemed a little too... convenient. “You don't think this is some kind of trap, is it? Like.... something is luring us to somewhere that you absolutely cannot resist, and you have to go and when we get there, it turns out that whatever it is that's kidnapping all those kids is wanting to have a big ol' wild west show down with us, or something?”

“I doubt it,” Sam sighed.

“But you can't be sure. I mean, maybe we should be Admiral Ackbarring this shit.”

“...what?”

“Philistine.” He rolled his eyes, grumpily.

And that was when he pulled into the driveway of the little blue, clapboard siding house. It was a sweet little house, from the looks of it, light blue with white shutters and trim, and a large cherry tree in the front yard, and a traditional white picket fence. Dean looked up at it, frowning slightly, and said, “Well, it doesn't look like a portal to hell, or anything.”

“I've been to this house a few times,” Sam shrugged, and slid out of the front passenger seat. “Jess really loved her parents.”

Dean followed him, frowning slightly. “They may not be Jess' family, Sammy. They might be trickster gods, or something. I mean, the house is the kind of nice place like those Christmas gods had. Just... warning you. I ain't eating their peanut brittle if they offer it.”

Shaking his head, he headed up the stairs, knocking on the front door.

The door was opened by a man in perhaps his fifties, black hair greying at the temples, cut in a sharp military cut. His face was creased by smile lines, and he looked surprised to see Sam for a moment, then smiled, honestly. Not exuberant with joy, or anything, but an honest smile. “Hello, Sam. Long time, no see.”

“I'm sorry about that, Tony.” He offered his hand, taking and shaking his hand. “It's nice to see you.”

“You as well, Sam.” He glanced past him. “This must be Dean.”

“Yeah... Dean... this is Tony Miller, Jess' father.” 

“Very nice to meet you, sir.” He offered his hand, shaking firmly. “I only met your daughter briefly, but she was a wonderful woman.”

“Thank you.” He smiled slightly. “Come in, boys.”

Both of the Winchester boys stepped into the small house, glancing around. It was a quiet little house, something of a traditional country style, with photos everywhere, in little frames all over the walls, on side tables, on bookshelves. It was like every inch that was available had photos, family shots, shots of smiling children, even shots of family pets, dogs, cats, even a hedgehog in one shot. Many of the pictures were of Jess herself, some with several other girls, some with her parents, one curled up with a large border collie. Sam stopped at one of the pictures, surprised, reaching out to touch the silver frame, lightly, staring at the photo of himself and Jess, curled up together on a park bench, beaming. Glowing, even.

“Jess really loved you, son.” Tony said, softly.

“...I loved her too.” He murmured, and dropped his hand.

“Come on, Anne's waiting in the kitchen.”

Dean hung back for a moment, considering the photo, frowning. Sam was holding her close, and Jess had a glow that seemed familiar. Somehow. He shook his head, and headed after the pair, and into the kitchen.

It was a warm kitchen, all painted in yellows and whites, with bright yellow tile back splash and white cupboards, bright and cheerful. It was a sort of  _ happy  _ room, really, and made a person just want to smile, being inside it. It smelled like cookies, and there was a large cookie jar on the counter shaped like a pig in a chef's uniform, which attested to the smell in the room. Anne Miller was a cheerful looking plump woman with long, silver hair tied back in a braid, though she wasn't smiling much, now, looked more like she was going to burst into tears. Still, she stood when they entered, and hugged Sam tightly. “Oh, Sam....”

“Hello, Anne.” He murmured, holding her for a moment, then leaned back. “It's good to see you.”

“You too, Sam.” She smiled, then cleared her throat, and stepped forward to introduce herself to Dean. 

Dean thought maybe things were a little too perfect, here. The house was clean, bright, sunny, and some kind of perfect sitcom family dwelling. It  _ had _ to be some kind of trap, it was too bright, too perfect, too 1950s sitcom sunshine and lollipops. But Tony seemed like a nice enough guy – maybe too nice – and Anne seemed just as nice, though he wasn't sure why she looked like she was about to start crying. It seemed... unusual.

“So... why the call?” Sam asked, awkwardly. “I mean, not that I'm not happy to see you... I am, but it was unexpected.”

“...come on, sit down, boys. Coffee, or tea, or anything?” Tony asked, looking sort of nervous.

Dean glanced at his brother, arching a brow.  _ Danger, Will Robinson _ !

Sam glowered at his brother, slightly, and sat beside Anne. She reached out to take his hand in hers, squeezing slightly, giving him a teary eyed smile. 

A few minutes later, Tony settled at the table, sliding a mug of coffee to each of the boys, cradling one himself. “You're right, Sam, we... we did call you down here for a reason, but it's... somewhat hard to explain. Complicated, if you will. We should have called you about this a long time ago, really, but we thought perhaps it was better this way, but... I don't think it is.” He sighed softly, looking down into his mug. “We lied to you, Sam.”

Dean pushed his chair back, slightly, about ready to bolt. 

“...about what?” Sam frowned.

Tony sighed, heavily, then said softly: “Jess didn't miscarry.”

Dean gaped at his brother, then at the man, then back at his brother, again.

Sam was pale. “...what?”

“I thought she miscarried when we were on that – that weekend we went out... right before the fire...?” Dean asked, stunned. “That was why you had to rush back so fast, because she called you and said something had happened...”

“Something  _ had _ happened.” Anne said, clearing her throat. “The baby was born early, very early, and very sick. She was in intensive care, but... she went back to the apartment to get some things when the... the fire.”

“You never said anything.” Sam stared at her, stunned, horrified. “You – Jess  _ had _ our baby, and you never  _ said _ anything?!”

“We thought it would be better.” She whispered, voice cracking, tears starting to run down her cheeks. “Jess had just died, the baby was still in intensive care, you had already left with your brother... we just thought it would be better for everyone involved if we just... waited to see, the baby was so sick and might not have made it anyway, but then afterwards... we just... thought it would be better.”

Sam swallowed, hands curled into tight fists on the table. “...that's my child.”

“And our grandchild.” Tony reminded him.

“ _ My _ child.” Sam said again, lifting his jaw, eyes too bright. “Where is she?”

Anne let out a soft cry, burying her face in her hands, shoulders shaking, sobbing. Sam gaped at her, shocked by that reaction, torn between sympathy for whatever was wrong, and rage for the fact that this couple had just essentially admitted to having  _ hidden _ his child from him for seven years.  _ Seven years _ .

“...that's why we called you.” Tony said softly, swallowing. “We had to let you know, now... you had to know.”

“What happened?” He asked, blood draining from his face.

“She went missing.” Tony said softly.

“Oh shit.” Dean breathed.

“ _ Missing _ ?”

“We went to wake her up, last week, for breakfast, before school. And she wasn't in bed, she was... she was just gone, and the doors were still locked, and the windows were all shut, and... the  _ light bulb _ above her bed was blown. We've tried to do everything, tried to find her, but...” He took a deep breath, tremulously. “The police have nothing, they don't know what happened, and... we lost Jess seven years ago, we can't lose Mary, too...”

“Mary.” Sam repeated, staring at him, slumped back in his seat, bonelessly.

“Mary,” he confirmed, and murmured, “Jess wanted to name her after your mother, she said.”

“So you – you waited until she went  _ missing _ to tell me that I have a  _ daughter _ ?” Sam demanded, jaw trembling slightly, a tick in his cheek working hard as he gaped at them. Dean was suddenly very grateful for that reaction – it showed that Sam was upset about it,  _ deeply _ upset about it. A few months ago, Sam might have brushed it off and said perhaps that sure, their reaction was pretty logical, all things considered. This agony, this pathos, as much as it hurt him to see his brother in pain like this, it was  _ good _ , because it meant that his brother had a working soul. “I could have – all these years...”

“Can we see Mary's room?” Dean asked, abruptly. “Just... we need a moment.”

“Oh yes,” Anne said, quickly, wiping at her eyes with a tissue. “Go upstairs, first door on the left, do you need us to show you...?”

“No.” Dean said, and tapped his brother's shoulder, leading him towards the stairs. “Thank you.”

Sam moved like a zombie, like a dead thing, stumbling up the stairs, face pale, eyes wide. Tumbling almost, Dean caught his arm to keep him upright, then tugged him into the room that had a foam “Mary” cutout on the door.

It was every inch a little girl's room, though there wasn't a stitch of pink anywhere in the room. The whole room was in blues and yellows, with sponge painted clouds on the walls, and a bright patchwork quilt in various shades of yellow. There were teddy bears on the pillows, and two large bookcases stuffed to the brim with books, many of them seriously dog-eared and clearly well read. There was a bulletin board hanging over a little desk, with dozens of crayon drawings pinned up on it, and beside the bed there was a large bin of legos, all sorts of half-assembled buildings and things in it. 

Dean sat heavily on the edge of the bed, and looked up at his brother. “Holy shit.”

Sam slumped to sit beside him, stunned. “...holy shit.”

Dean took a deep breath, staring at the box of legos, and the green army men scattered through them. Those things  _ had _ to be some kind of metaphor, every kid he'd ever cared about seemed to have those things – especially Sammy. “I gotta say, man, I sort of figured if  _ either _ of us was going to knock someone up, it was going to be me.”

“And how old is Ben, now?” He asked, but there was no venomous sting to his words. 

“Touche.”

Sam sighed heavily, leaning back slightly, to run his hands through his hair, making it stick up at odd angles. “You know the only way I was able to maintain any sanity after Jess' death was by reminding myself that at least our unborn child hadn't burned up on that ceiling with her mother. And now to find out that she didn't actually die... son of a bitch, seven years, and they couldn't pick up a phone  _ once _ to let me know that I have a  _ child?” _

Dean cleared his throat. “Yeah, that kinda  _ is _ a dick move.”

“...what do I  _ do _ , Dean?” Sam whispered, finally. He looked absolutely shell-shocked, which was actually pretty understandable considering he'd just discovered that he had a seven year old daughter – and that she was missing.

“Honestly?” He glanced at him. “Best I got is 'find her'.”

Sam groaned. “Thanks, Dean. I wouldn't have come up with that on my own.”

“Always glad to help out.” He grinned, then sobered, setting his hand against his brother's shoulder, trying to give him whatever comfort he could manage. “I'm sorry, Sam. I really am. This is all kinds of... insane.”

He nodded, and stood, moving over to the desk.

There were three framed photos on it, one of Jess, taken shortly after they had started dating, looking over her shoulder as they sun set her blonde curls into a flare of golden fire, beaming back at the camera. The second was, to his surprise, actually one of himself. He was sitting in a chair in a graduated lecture hall, sprawled out lazily, smirking just slightly. Jess had taken this photo in their psychology class, the one he'd taken only for a humanities credit, the one where they'd met. But it was the third photo he picked up, considering seriously. It was a grade school class photo, of an enigmatically, Mona Lisa smiling child, whose dirty blonde hair fell in curling waves around her face, green eyes bright but shadowed at the same time, like she simply knew too much for a child her age.

Dean had stood, and leaned on his brother's arm as he considered the photo. “Mary, huh?”

“Mary,” he nodded, quietly.

“...cute kid.”

Sam sighed heavily, and set the photo back down on the desk with a thump. “Can we stop talking like this somehow is a _ normal _ conversation? I just found that the child I thought had died seven years ago is still alive – or at least, she was until a week ago. Now she's one of the missing kids, so for all we know, she might be dead, Dean. This is – this is...”

“Fucked up.” Dean offered.

“Yeah. Come on.” He turned to the door. “Let's go get  _ every _ detail out of Tony and Anne, then... then we track them down.”

“Yeah.” Dean nodded, then hesitated, and doubled back. Bending over the bed, he scooped up the most battered teddy bear out of the bunch, and tucked it up under his arm.

“...what?” Sam gaped at him.

“If I was seven years old, I'd want something familiar when I got rescued.” He shrugged. “Let's go.”


	2. Chapter 2

Destiny was doodling in her margins when she realized she was being watched. It was just an odd feeling at first, and she passed it off as one of her classmates just looking at her, but the longer she tried to ignore it, the worse it got, until it really felt like she was going to lift her head and have the whole class staring at her.  
She finally lifted her head, wondering if her life really was that cliche, but no, her teacher was still writing on the board, and her classmates were paying attention – to varying degrees. Everything was just sort of... well, normal. Very normal, even.

The feeling of being watched didn't go away, though.

Actually, as the day went on, the feeling got worse, until she downright felt like her skin was crawling. She kept glancing over her shoulder, expecting to find a psycho with a knife, or something, but despite her increasing agitation, everything just seemed so damn normal. No gun-weilding murderers, no conspiring bully bitches, nothing out of the ordinary in any way – except that she was sure she was going absolutely insane.

At lunch, hoping that escaping the building would escape some of the unseen pressure, she slipped out into one of the courtyards, which was deserted except for her.

Nope.

Still felt like she was being stared at.

Tugging her Blackberry out of her pocket, Destiny hesitated – then dialled Michael's number. (Okay, she pulled it up from her call history. Who actually memorized phone numbers these days, seriously?)

“Thank you for calling 2400 - “

“Michael.”

He was silent for a moment, then said, “Destiny? Are you okay?”

“No, I am very much not okay, thank you very much.” She sighed heavily, and slumped against the brick wall that surrounded the little courtyard. “No, I am very much, very very very much not okay.”

“Okay. Slow down. What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“...nothing?”

Destiny sighed heavily, and kicked back at the wall. “I know, it sounds insane.”

“No...” he said, slowly.

She rolled her eyes. “Don't patronize me, Michael. I know that sounds absolutely insane. It's just that... I feel like I'm being watched. I still feel like I'm being watched, and there's no one there and nothing has happened but god I feel like someone is staring at me, all the time!”

“...have you seen the woman again?”

“No.” She sighed, “Not once, since I wrote that symbol on my shoe.”

She glanced down at the toe of her white sneaker, where she had drawn the funny looking symbol that Michael had emailed her with a sharpie. “Though my mom threatened to wash it off because apparently she thinks it's some kind of satanic wiccan thing.”

“Tell her it's Jewish. Maybe that'll help.”

Destiny snorted. “You do know what state we live in, right? I doubt that'd help.”

Michael laughed, softly. “Maybe. But you haven't seen her?”

“No, not once. But this... this being watched thing... god, Michael, I almost wish I could still see her, so at least I'd know what the hell was staring at me.”

“Wait.”

“You tell me to wait a lot.” She rolled her eyes.

“Okay, but this is for a good reason. This is going to sound really weird, but it's an experiment. I want you to take your shoe off.”

“What?” She bolted up. “You told me not to take it off, that my life depended on it! I've been sleeping with it on and washing my hair in the sink so that I didn't have to take it off, why am I taking it off now?”

“Just... trust me. Don't put it far, just... take it off, and well, stop touching it for a minute.”

“You know.” Destiny grumbled, sliding down the wall and bracing her phone with her shoulder, so that she could unlace her right shoe. “I am taking an awful lot on faith, here. I mean, I've never even met you, for all I know this is like some lame Fitchburg version of Punked and you're sitting there snickering about me wearing a shoe with a Jewish symbol on – holy shit!”

“Destiny? Destiny?”

One moment, everything had been normal. Perfectly, simply normal, then she had tugged off her shoe and suddenly it wasn't normal.

The moment Destiny stopped touching her shoe, she wasn't alone anymore. There were five men standing in a ring around her, wearing black suits and ties, but all muscular and looking something like the president's bouncers – and they were all glaring down at her.

She gasped, and grabbed the shoe again.

They vanished.

“Holy shit.” She gasped, again.

“Destiny!” Michael's desperate voice called from the phone – which was now laying on the grass. She snatched it up, and answered with shaking hands.

“I'm here – I'm here – holy shit, Michael - “

“What'd you see?!” He demanded.

“Five guys! Five big guys in suits just watching me and now they're gone, and - “

Destiny hesitated, and slowly released the shoe, again.

They'd moved closer. Not only had they moved closer, but one of them, an asshole with his blond hair shaved almost to the skin of his head, was reaching towards her, his fingers mere inches from his face.

She screamed, and slammed her hand back down on her shoe, scrambling up to her feet. Gripping her shoe tightly, she bolted forward, expecting to run into suddenly invisible men, but encountered no resistance. Still, even though they were apparently magically gone, she ran, out of the courtyard, out into the halls. One socked foot and one sneaker-clad foot slapping on the tiles, she ran, desperate to get away.

It wasn't until she'd slammed herself into a bathroom stall in the girl's washroom – they wouldn't dare follow her in here, would they? - did she realize she was still holding her phone.

Destiny locked the stall door, firmly, then clambered up onto the toilet seat, then sat on the back of the tank. Shaking, she held her phone up to her ear, and said, “Mi – Michael, are you still there?”

“Yeah, yeah, I'm still here. You okay?”

“What was that?”

“It – it was supposed to make you invisible to them.” He cleared his throat. “But my Hebrew's pretty... sketchy, so maybe I did it the wrong way around...”

“Are you saying that symbol makes them invisible?! So they could be right here?!”

He cleared his throat. “Technically...”

Destiny dropped her shoe. It hit the tile floor and just sat there. She half expected someone to appear in the stall with her, under the door. But nothing appeared, everything stayed the same. “I would suggest,” she said dryly, “That in the future, you brush up on your Hebrew skills and find some way for them to not find me.”

“I'm working on it, I'm working on it... well, obviously you can't put that symbol back on, either way. Then you won't see if they're coming for you...”

“They went like... ghost.”

“...what?”

“I ran through one of them, I'm sure of it. So I couldn't see them anymore, and I'm pretty sure I just couldn't touch them, either.”

“Oh. Then it might be – no. Okay, I mean, it's good if they can't touch you, that's a really good thing, we don't want them to be able to touch you. But if they can still see you and you can't see them, there is totally a chance that they might be able to find a way around that, and then you wouldn't even see them coming. No good.” Michael sighed. “You need to get rid of that symbol, because, well, you'll need two shoes.”

“But then those sons of bitches will be able to touch me.”

“Maybe,” he agreed. “Did any of them actually touch you?”

“...no.” She admitted. “But I wasn't about to give them enough time to try to, Michael!”

“Oh trust me, I understand.” He groaned softly.

“Okay, so what do I do? I mean, obviously I can't go running around with a symbol where they can see me but I can't see them, because that is pretty much counter-productive for the whole 'keeping me safe' thing, but I also can't keep running around and hoping that they can't get their hands on me. That doesn't work, Michael.”

“...you got email on your phone?”

“What kind of fifteen year old do you take me for?” She rolled her eyes. “Obviously I have email on my damn phone. What are you sending me?”

“Well, that symbol didn't work, there's another - “

“Are you as sure about this one as you were about the last one?” She demanded, frowning.

“....slightly more sure.”

“I am not feeling terribly comforted, Michael.”

“Look, it's better than nothing, isn't it?”

“....unless you send me some symbol that's like catnip for whatever the hell these people are. Because I'm sorry, but I don't think these are normal people. Normal people don't go missing when you write Jewish symbols on your shoes, Michael.”

“I completely agree with you on that.” He sighed, softly. “But I don't know what to tell you, not exactly. Look, either this works or this doesn't, but I really think it's worth a shot, at least.”

Destiny sighed. “...email me the thing, Michael.”

She didn't randomly have a sharpie in her pocket or anything – damn, that would be totally helpful if she did, though, wouldn't it – but she did have the pen she'd shoved into her pocket after third period, and she was able to carefully draw the funny symbol – not too different from the old one, not really – on her left toe with the ballpoint. And she scribbled out the other symbol, hoping that was going to be enough.

Both shoes on, phone shoved in one pocket and the pen in the other, Destiny slipped out of the bathroom, and into the hallways.

No one looked at her. Not one of her schoolmates turned to look at her, and she didn't see one man in suits. Shit. This could mean that they were still invisible. Or it could mean that they just hadn't found her, yet. Either was, frighteningly, a real possibility here.

In the face of everyone could be an enemy, could be a threat.

How was she supposed to know?

It was strange – before, having eyes on her constantly made her feel nervous, unnerved. Now that she didn't feel like she was being constantly surveyed, she was trying to figure out where the hell they were waiting for her.

They were waiting for her, it turned out, after last period.

With her backpack flung over her shoulder, Destiny headed out of her English classroom, her guard starting to go down, now that she had been left alone for the remainder of the day. Honestly, it was all starting to feel like she'd blown it out of proportion somehow, like it wasn't really as bad as she'd originally thought it was, like maybe she'd worked herself up about it so much that she'd made it seem so much worse than it had been. After all, she hadn't been touched. Maybe she'd imagined them.

If it wasn't for the symbols on her toes, and the reminders that Michael really was expecting her to call when the day was out, to make sure that she all right, she might have thought that she had somehow imagined it all.

Turning down the science hallway, to head down towards her locker, Destiny hesitated.

The hallway was empty.

That was... unusual. Quiet was normal enough, but complete silence was very strange. Why would it be completely silent, completely empty?

She hesitated, considering that.

And then a woman stepped out from the hall around the corner, dressed in a neat black suit, giving her a stern, disapproving look, jaw set tightly. “Destiny.” She said, voice cold. “It is time to face yours.”

“Oh hell no... Michael... your thing didn't work...” she backed up, eyes wide.

“You cannot avoid this any longer, Destiny.” The woman walked forward with a sort of steady, firm purpose, striding with the confidence of someone who knew that she was going to get what she wanted because she always got what she wanted, and whatever it was she wanted from Destiny she was bound and determined she was going to get. Kids are going missing, Michael had said, and she swallowed, backing up again. She didn't want to go missing.

“You really should be flattered that I am coming to get you myself, Destiny.” The woman said, still walking forward. “I have not retrieved any of the others myself.”

“Look, lady, I'm sure you're a very nice person when you're not kidnapping people, and I'm very sure that I should be flattered, but I don't want - “

She continued on as though Destiny had never spoken. “You are the first among them all, did you know that? The first among a line holds a special kind of power among us. I rather think that there is a fine possibility that this means there are possibilities in your future that are simply not in the other's futures. I have high hopes for you, Destiny.”

“...you can have them for someone else, thanks.”

“I wasn't offering you a choice.”

And suddenly the woman wasn't at the end of the hall, anymore, she was right in front of her, and Destiny yelped, and bolted back from her.

You can't outrun someone that can just teleport. She knew that – she wasn't stupid. So if you can't outrun someone that can just teleport, what do you do? Fight back seemed the logical answer, but Destiny wasn't exactly sure that she was equipped to fight someone who could be there one moment and gone the next. In fact, she was damn well sure that she was not in any way equipped. She was doomed.

The woman was suddenly in front of her. “Come, Destiny.”

“Oh hell no, I ain't - “

“Hey, bitch!”

Destiny would later say that it was kind of funny that they both turned.

There was a teenaged boy standing by the lockers, panting slightly, shaggy, slightly scruffy blond hair hanging in his eyes. He had written a symbol on the wall by the lockers, in what Destiny dearly hoped wasn't but was pretty sure was in fact blood. More blood was dripping from his palm, and he grinned when he realized they were both looking. “You've outstayed your welcome.”

“No!” The woman shouted.

He slapped his bloody palm into the middle of the symbol. There was a bright flare of light, and Destiny threw up her hands, shielding her eyes, then everything was silent again, the hallway darker in comparison to that bright light from before, and it was just her and the strange boy. He pulled his hand slowly off the bloody symbol, and heaved a heavy sigh. “God, I wasn't sure if that was going to work.”

“...Michael?”

He grinned slowly. “Hey, Destiny. Turns out if you break a lot of traffic laws, you're only an hour ten away.”

 

\---

 

“So let me see if I got this straight.”

Bobby poured three tumblers of whiskey with remarkable calm, considering his whole world had just gone slightly pear shaped. He pushed two of the glasses forward, and Sam and Dean took them with expressions that pretty much matched the old redneck's. He took a long deep swallow of the amber liquid, then said firmly, “You have a kid, Sam. A seven year old kid, and now she's missing along with all the others. So far, the only link – the only link we got, now, is that one of the two of you slept with the mothers of these children.”

“I didn't sleep with - “ Dean protested, then cut off when Bobby held up his hand, frowning.

“With the possible exception of Judy, who we ain't been able to figure out the connection to. Other than her, one or... possibly both, I ain't got a clue, slept with their mothers. For sure, Sam fathered the child that's missing here. And Dean slept with Jamariah about nine, ten months before her son was born, and both of them Doublemint twins before they had their kids. So I hate to say it cause it makes my damn brain hurt just to think it,” He took another swig of his drink. “But is it possible that these kids are goin' missing cause they're yer kids?”

“Bobby, there are almost a dozen kids missing now!”

“And yer a slut.” Bobby said bluntly, smirking only slightly when that comment made Sam gag on his whiskey and cough violently, trying to recover.

“Bobby!” Dean gaped at his surrogate father.

“What? I'm sayin' what we were all thinkin', anyway, don't get yer knickers in a knot. You said Cas said they were all linked to you somehow... maybe this is how that link exists.”

“Bobby, I do not have a dozen illegitimate children out there!”

“Could be right.” He shrugged. “Could be more.”

“Oh, for...” He threw up his hands.

Sam frowned, seriously, considering that. “Well, Dean, you are sort of an expert on picking up girls in bars...”

“I have a normal, healthy sex drive, thank you very much, no thanks to all your baby brother puppy dog eyes cock blocking, thank you. Dammit. I'm not some idiot, Sammy, I take precautions.”

“Yeah, sure, but “precautions” aren't always foolproof. Jess was on the pill when she got pregnant. Turns out the antibiotics she was taking for her strep throat made the birth control not work for about a month.”

Dean paled, and stood, running his fingers across his mouth, slowly. “That's possible?”

“Shit, son. Even I've watched 'I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant'.” Bobby rolled his eyes. “Course that's possible.”

They both just stared at him.

“Come on, it's a good show, shut up.” He grumbled, rolling his eyes, and poured himself a new glass of whiskey.

“My head hurts.” Dean said, slowly, pressing his palms to his forehead, just shaking his head. “My brain is absolutely pounding. Seriously. I do not have a dozen or more children, Bobby!”

“You might,” Sam said, sighing softly.

“No. Not a chance.”

“Dean.” Bobby said firmly, with a growl that didn't brook arguments. “We need to talk about this like logical adults, not idiot teenagers. Yer a man that has sex, sometimes, and unless yer sleepin' with a whole lot of men we didn't know about, then guess what, you have a possibility of having a child. That's the way sex works. So sure, you might not want to accept it, or nothing, but it happens. So stop acting like a child, we have to accept that this is genuinely a possibility.”

Dean groaned. “I ain't an idiot, Bobby. I get how biology works, but...” He gestured helplessly. “But a dozen of them?!”

“That does seem a bit extreme.” Sam admitted.

“Thank you!” Dean yelped, throwing up his hands. “I mean, I get it, technically it's possible, I could see one of two, but not dozens!”

Bobby frowned, clearly thinking very hard about that. “Hm.”

“Bobby.” Dean blinked at him. “That's a serious 'hm'. You got something? Seriously, you got an idea of what might be doing this?”

“Nothing concrete,” he admitted, pushing his wheelie chair back. He slid along the floor for a few moments, frowning as he considered his shelves, then tugged down a large, slightly falling apart leather bound book. Thumping it down on his desk, he flicked it open, searching through the pages. “Far as I know, there aren't any cases like this, but there are a few creatures that play on children... changelings...”

“Oh god, not changelings.” Dean shuddered. “Not again.”

“Well... changelings just copy real children. There are things like succubi... succubi are often called demons, but they're not really... mostly they're just a kind of animal, and they're bound and determined to have babies with humans, for some damn reason.”

“Jess wasn't a succubus.” Sam said, firmly.

“Example, kiddo.”

Sam frowned slightly, but nodded, quietly, considering that.

“But there is a possibility that it could be something other than just... we have a whole lot of kids missing, and they're all apparently mine, right?” Dean asked, with a tinge of panic in his voice.

“Yeah, Dean, there's a possibility.” Bobby sighed, like he was talking to a child.

“Well... good.” He cleared his throat.

“You know, for a man of your age - “

“Oi. You are not calling me old, old man.” Dean pointed at him, glowering.

“Did I?” Bobby smirked, taking a swallow of his whiskey. “For a man yer age, I was sayin', yer acting like a teenager. Or younger than a teenager.” He shook his head. “I mean, I always knew you were a bit of a brat sometimes, but really Dean... you could deal with a bit more maturity on this.”

Sam snickered, ducking his head, clearing his throat quickly when Dean gave him an absolutely venomous look.

“And what do you think you'd do if someone said 'Hey Bobby, guess what, not only do you got a dozen kids you didn't know about, but they are missing'?”

He hesitated. “...I'd rather not think about that.”

“It's important to think about that.” He said, growling slightly, “Because that is exactly what is happening to me right now, and I am freaking. The. Fuck. Out.”

“...I think you need some more whiskey.” Bobby said finally, picking up the bottle of rotgut whiskey and cracking off the cap.

“Now yer finally catching onto what I'm saying.” He sighed.

“So what do we do now, then?” Sam asked, finally, watching as his brother drowned a half glass of the terrible whiskey almost as fast as Bobby could pour it for him, eyes closed, as though desperate to just get the memories of it out of his mind. “Research mode and hope to all hell we find whatever it is that's doing this? I mean, assuming that the kidnappings aren't the only thing the creatures are doing, assuming that the children themselves are somehow involved...”

“That's what we always do,” Bobby shrugged, flicking the page. “Pull up a chair and a book, boys, we got a lot of books to look through.”

Sam nodded, and sighed. “Yeah. Thanks, Bobby, you know... for helping us on this.”

“Hey, you two idjits didn't even think this was a hunt, so really I ought to be gloating right now, or something. Because really, if I hadn't have said 'lookit I found you', you'd have not realized what a man whore your brother is.”

“Oi!” Dean yelped.

Sam snorted, tugging a book titled “Children's Monsters” off of the shelf, and sank into his chair again. “Dean, you're aware of the fact that he's only doing it because of the reactions you're giving him?”

“You both suck.” He muttered, and tugged another book off the shelf. “Mm. “Monster Mothers”, Bobby?”

“Yeah, got that one from a friend, it's supposed to be the stories about where each of the monsters came from... thought it might lead us to Eve, but it's all bullshit, nothing in it is even vaguely believable. Makes for an interesting read, though.” He shrugged, knocking back a swig of his drink, crinkling his nose slightly. “Give it a read if you think it might have anything useful.”

“Well, if you've read it before, you remember it, don'tcha?” Dean frowned, weighing the book in his hand.

“I was readin' it for different things,” he grumped.

“And he was probably drunk at the time,” Sam remarked idly, smirking slightly as he licked his fingertip and flicked the page to the next one.

“I resemble that remark,” he muttered, flicking through the pages of his own book.

There was silence in Bobby's living room for a long time. The phone rang occasionally, and he'd rise to answer, sometimes giving little pieces of information, sometimes offering advice, on two separate occasions vouching for the legitimacy of an illegitimate FBI agent, one that was actually another hunter on a case. One of the calls that came in was to inform them that yet another child was missing, but a grumbling Dean admitted that he was pretty sure he'd been on a hunt in that town and slept with a waitress at one of the cafe's, so there wasn't really any point in going to visit it, just to find the same trail of evidence. After all, the kid would be missing, there would be a broken light bulb, and they'd be no further than they had been before they went to check.

Every once in awhile, one would bring up a little interesting tidbit they had found in one of the books, wondering aloud if it might have something to do with it, after all, but in the end, if there was a monster that somehow created children and then took them away, later, thy had to admit that they couldn't find the slightest proof that one existed. It was beyond frustrating, and more than once, someone suggested that Dean try and get Cas to come help. Sure, he gave a couple of his half-assed prayers, but no angel came.

Sam nodded off first, long after the sun had set and they were running on coffee and whiskey alone, and he finally slumped in his seat, snoring softly.

Dean watched his brother for a few minutes, honestly relieved. Sam was sleeping. It was such a tiny, insignificant thing, the sort of thing that might have caused him annoyance in the past. After all, they were working, so Sammy passing out in the middle of research was rather, well, useless. But at the same time, it meant that his brother was very much in possession of the very thing he hadn't had, what, even a few months ago.

His brother had his soul back.

He sighed softly, pleased, and slid down a little in his own seat, and went back to reading, the tiny letters of the book swimming in front of his own tired eyes.

The book was removed from his hands with light fingers, and he shifted slightly in his seat, fighting the heaviness in his eyelids, trying to look up, murmuring, “C'mon, Bobby, I can still work...”

“I am not Bobby.”

Blinking, he fought to sit up properly, and realized that it was not, in fact, the old redneck. It was a trench-coated angel, crouching in front of his chair, looking up at him with a serious, concerned expression. Castiel's brows were furrowed, and the slightly anxious expression the angel gave him made him more worried than a lot of other things had. “...what is it, Cas?”

“You called.”

“Yeah, like two hours ago, I sort of figured you were in the middle of one of those knock-down drag out fights you'd been having with Raphael lately, you know, beating the angel in the half shell and all. We lowly humans can figure it out, right?”

Castiel's brows furrowed, and he muttered, “Your sarcasm is neither appreciated nor necessary, Dean .”

He sighed, heavily. “I get it.”

“What can I help you with, then, Dean?” Castiel stood, standing in the dark living room with a sort of helpless, out of place expression.

“Remember the kids, the ones going missing?”

Castiel nodded, slipping his hands into the pockets of his jacket, as though he was just trying to find something to do with his hands, somewhere to put them. “Of course. I have been devoting considerable energy to find them, if I can. It is rather concerning to me that dozens of children are missing, and that they have been scrubbed so neatly from the planet that not even I can find them. They are blocked from my sight.”

“Have you figured out yet why they are blocked?” Dean asked, running his hand through his hair.

The angel shook his head, clearly frustrated by this.

“Well, Bobby thinks it might have been something... collecting its children.” He cleared his throat. “Somehow. I mean... I don't know how much you lurk or listen in on what humans are doing... I know some of the other angels sort of perved in on us, so maybe you already know, but... it, ah... sort of seems that all of the kids... are either mine or Sammy's kids.”

Castiel blinked slightly.

“Yeah. So... apparently I have a few kids out there I wasn't aware of, and - “

“That makes perfect sense.” He said, abruptly, sitting on the arm of Dean's chair, frowning slightly as he pondered that idea, seriously. “That makes everything make perfect sense. You have... many children, Dean.”

“Don't you start on that 'Dean is a manwhore' thing, too.” He grumbled.

The angel blinked at him for a few long moments, then shook his head, and simply said, “Then perhaps the key to tracking these children down lies not in the fathers, because we already know them, but in the mothers themselves. Is it possible that they are not human – succubi, for instance.”

“Suggested and dismissed.” He sighed slightly. “I assume you know about Sam's old girlfriend, Jess? Turns out she had a baby, too.”

“Ah.”

Dean nodded, and sighed, and didn't even look up when Bobby's cat, Boots, leapt up onto his lap. He ran his palm down the spine of the cat, sighing softly, not even complaining like he usually did that he was going to get covered in fur when the cat settled in his lap, purring softly. “So apparently I have dozens of children, Cas. I mean, I know we have a total transient lifestyle and all, and that we Winchesters move around a lot, but... how in all of the seven levels of hell did I manage to get dozens of children and not know about it?!”

“There are more than seven levels of hell,” Cas remarked idly. “Merely seven rings of the central levels. So you have children, then.”

“Besides Ben.” He agreed.

“And whatever is doing this has scrubbed any trace of the children away, and deliberately blocked them from angel eyes.” Castiel frowned, considering that, seriously. “Perhaps there has been meddling done...”

“...like... time travel meddling?” Dean arched a brow.

“There was a disturbance yesterday,” The angel agreed, shaking his head slightly as he stared off into space. “Raphael was seen on earth, which he does now and again, when he is deliberately interfering, but...”

“But?” Dean asked, arching a brow.

“But he was banished.”

“Banished.” He repeated, sighing softly as he considered the angel seriously.

“You have done it many times before, as have I.”

“Oh wait, like someone full on bamfed Raphael out of there?!” He gaped at Castiel, surprised. “Damn. I didn't even realize there was a person on the planet with balls of steel big enough to even think of doing that. Damn. Whoever did that is fucked the second he gets his hands on them.”

“You see my point.” He sighed. “This happened yesterday. I am unaware of the circumstances leading up to it, but... several of Raphael's close associates are very angry about it.”

“Wonder why?” He snorted, shaking his head.

“We have been pressing probing missions into the situation, to try and determine what is going on, but we have not been able to find anything. It is as though the same thing that happened to keep the children blocked from my sight has happened to this, as well.”

“Do you think it's connected?” He frowned slightly.

“I think there is entirely a possibility.”

“I have been hearing 'that's a possibility' way too many times today.” Dean grumbled, crossing his arms. “If I hear that something is a possibility even once more, I might have to go out shooting things. Preferably the people who keep saying that things are fucking possibilities.”

Castiel sighed, and rested his hand on the other's shoulder, lightly. “Dean.”

“I know, I know... but are you able to find the link, for us? Confirm if they really are all our kids?”

“I should be able to do that,” he nodded. “Unless that, too, has been blocked. I do not, however, think that they are. One moment.” Castiel sat up a little straighter, staring off into space for a moment, as though he was focusing on something that Dean couldn't see, then finally shifted, sitting with a more relaxed posture, sighing softly. “They are.”

“Great.” Dean groaned, softly, leaning back in his seat.

“Hm.” He nodded, considering him. “I believe we will need to find who is taking these children, and quickly. I fear that there is a possibility that it has something to do with our heavenly war.”

“So you think the civil war is why these kids are missing?” Dean asked.

“I think it is a strong – I do think there's a very good chance.”

“Nice save.” He smirked slightly, crossing his arms.

Castiel smirked slightly, inclining his head.

“So why would they be stealing my kids, or Sam's kids. What good could that possibly do for the forces of heaven?”

“Your family is not an insignificant one, you have been told that many times throughout our relationship.” Castiel sighed softly, and Dean arched his brow at the word 'relationship'. Damn, the angel really never seemed to catch the double entendres he was throwing out left right and centre – or he did, and he was deliberately acting as innocent as possible in an attempt to throw the Winchester boys off his tracks. Honestly, with Cas, he was never really sure one way of the other. “There are certain bloodlines in both the Winchester and the Campbell family lines that make you and your brother – and John and Adam both, when they were alive, as well – highly desirable for many. Either as pawns in their games of chess for the world, or as larger pieces, perhaps. Bishops, or knights. Some even suggest that you and Sam might represent the queens on either side. You the white queen, Sam the black. Some, like Raphael, want to set the chess pieces back up – and to do so, they will need their queens, again.”

“I am not saying yes, and there is no way in hell I will let Sammy say yes,” he said, fiercely, teeth grit.

“I am aware of that.” Castiel said, firmly. “We fought for free will, and I choose to believe that we have achieved what we fought for, and soon, we will spread that free will to the other angels. I do not believe that Raphael intends to force you to be the vessels again. I do not believe he thinks he will be able to achieve it, not twice.”

“Then what do you think he wants?” He frowned.

“He needs vessels for Michael and Lucifer, Dean. As we have seen, we require Winchesters for that.”

Dean paled. “And if we won't play ball...”

“Perhaps your children will. Yes.”

He groaned, covering his face with his hands for a few moments, then slowly slid his hands off of his face, eyes closed. “Sons of bitches. He'd totally do that, too. Fuck, he really would. Pulling in our possible children... that is low.”

“I'll keep looking into it,” Castiel said, finally, with a slight sigh.

“...thanks, Cas.”

He smiled briefly, fleetingly, and reached up to set his hand on Dean's shoulder, gently, and murmured, “I'm sorry that this is happening to you, Dean. If I had a way, I would try to fix this.”

“I think the only way to fix it would be to find the kids.”

“I'll see if I can find them.” The angel nodded.

“...thanks,” he said again, closing his eyes. “This is frustrating, Cas... everything I know has changed. And not in the kind of cool fun way, you know, where we discover that life is easier, or hey, it's way easier to kill that thing than we thought, or... no. No, it's that my brother and I have apparently knocked up a bunch of women, and now our kids are missing. What the hell.”

“Maybe Bobby is right.” The angel remarked, idly, standing.

“About what?” He asked, brows furrowed.

“Perhaps you should sleep with more men. At least them you cannot get pregnant.”

Dean gaped at him.

Cas smirked.

“...son of a bitch, Cas, I wish I'd never taught you about humour,” he muttered, rolling his eyes, and shaking his head.

 

\---

 

“We're here.”

Destiny started slightly, clearing her throat, and lifting her head. She'd fallen asleep with her forehead pressed against the cool glass of the passenger seat window, and it hurt a little, actually. She was pretty sure she was going to have a funny red mark on her forehead, now, so she quickly brushed her blond bangs over her forehead, hoping that it covered up the mark enough that she wouldn't look like a freak. It was dark, which made sense because she and Michael had hidden out at her house for a long while before they got in his beat up old SUV and started the drive north to Fitchburg. She'd packed everything she had thought she might need for a long while, wrote her mother a letter apologizing for leaving, and finally, her and Michael left.

“....nice place.”

“Yeah, laugh it up.” Michael smirked, swinging out of the car, tossing his backpack over his shoulder. “Admit it. We're a no-tell motel.”

She laughed, glancing up at the “2400 Court” sign written in neon lights by the edge of the lot, then back at the little motel, which at least had the benefit of being cute, with white clapboard walls and blue trims. “It's not a bad place. Shitty sort of name for a motel though, isn't it?”

He snorted. “Well, if it is, it's my mother's fault.”

She arched a brow as she dug in the back seat to tug out her duffle bag, letting out an “Oof!” of air as she flung it across her shoulder. It was heavier than she'd expected. “Oh yeah, why? Did she name it?”

“Yeah, technically, this is her place.” He shrugged, and headed towards the door that had a wooden sign reading “OFFICE” above the door. “Come on in.”

“So I'll be staying here, then?” She frowned slightly, glancing up at the upper levels, peering down the line of the motel rooms. There were white symbols written in the windows of all of the rooms, and the sign in the office door said “NO VACANCY” in neon lights. “Doesn't look like you actually have room for me.”

“Oh, there's room.” He sighed softly, leaning on the door as he unlocked it, pushing it open. “We're not open right now because we have a few too many kids staying here to make room otherwise.” He tapped the glass of the window, with the white symbol painted on the inside of it. “Plus I think there's a good chance that normal people would have a problem with these things. My mother has a real problem with them.”

“So why are they there, then?” Destiny asked, curiously, setting her bag on the tall office reception desk.

“Remember the symbol I had you draw on your shoe?” He asked, tossing his backpack down behind the desk, and sank bonelessly into the desk at the reception area, stretching, arching his back. “I told you, I got it out of an old Hebrew book, it's a bit hard to read because I'm, you know, an eighteen year old high school student, so reading Hebrew is not exactly my forte, but either way, the symbols in that book are supposed to be able to keep... certain things out.”

“Keep certain things out.” She repeated.

“Trust me, this is going to be hard to explain, at least let me get you checked in before we get into that.”

“Checked in?” She snickered, crossing her arms across the top of the reception desk, resting her chin on her arms as she grinned down at him. “So what, I'm supposed to be paying you for this?”

“No, but I need to keep my records straight, or my mother will never turn this place over to me,” he grinned, and started typing rapidly at the computer. “I'm trying to buy it off of her, you see... I think it'd be a good thing, you know, to come home to.”

“Come home to?” She repeated, arching a brow. “What are you coming home from?”

“What, you think my running to come save you today was a one time thing?” Michael leaned back in his chair, arching a brow right back at her, smirking slightly. “Hate to tell you this, sweetheart, but you're not the only girl I've rescued.”

“Well, I don't feel special anymore.” Destiny laughed, softly.

Snickering, shaking his head, he kept typing, then leaned over to snag one of the key rings off of the corkboard behind him, which barely had any keys left. He tossed the keys to her, with a grin, and laughed when Destiny swore, and darted back across the office to retrieve them from where they'd landed on the floor. “Very nice, Destiny. You're in room eight, one king, so you don't have to share.”

“Thanks,” she grumbled, shoving the keys in her pocket. “Now. You have got a hell of a lot to explain, mister.”

“I know.” Michael nodded, standing, and scooping up his own backpack again.

Destiny nodded, and slung her duffle back across her own shoulder, and headed down the hall. The room she let them into, a few minutes later, was nice enough, one of the least offensive motel rooms she'd ever seen. Back in the day, when her mother used to travel for work – and she got dragged along with her everywhere – Destiny had seen a lot of seriously disgusting motel rooms. Some of them were huge, but most of them were funny looking, or funny smelling. One of them had even been panelled completely with velvet, so at least this was a fairly quiet, normal looking place. Dropping her duffle onto the king sized bed, Destiny clambered up onto it herself, to test the bounce of the mattress, then patted the bed beside her. “Sit down, Mister Michael, I think we need to talk.”

He sighed, heavily, and settled beside her.

“So.” She crossed her arms, smirking slightly at him, arching a brow. “What's with the symbols, what's with the Hebrew, and what's with the woman you blew away with the... blood and the light?”

He groaned softly. He'd been promising to explain everything since before, since he'd first helped her out of the school after the woman had disappeared in a blaze of light. She'd only let him into her house because he had promised to explain everything, so... she had to know. Michael had been sort of hoping that he would have more time before he finally had to spill all the secrets of the universe, but no, that wasn't the case. Fine. He could put on his big boy pants and explain – he'd had to do so several times before, already.

“All right.” Michael said, firmly. “You know that there are strange things out there, right?”

“If by 'strange things out there' you mean normal guys making women disappear with blood and strange guys going missing, then yes.”

“Well... yes, those are types of strange things.” He admitted, clearing his throat. “But I mean... vampires, demons, witches...”

“Oh great, you're a weirdo.” Destiny rolled her eyes.

“Ha ha.” He drawled, crossing his arms, smirking slightly. “Lookit me, Destiny, do I look like some kind of weirdo?”

She leaned closer to him, peering down the collar of his t-shirt, then checked his hands. “Well, no crystals or henna, so you do look fairly normal...”

He barked in laughter, amused, and shook his head. “Very nice, Destiny.”

Destiny grinned, and flopped back against the pillows on the bed, folding her hands on her stomach as she looked at her companion, considering him thoughtfully. “So I'm trying to figure this all out. There are vampires, witches, and demons, eh?”

“And werewolves, ghosts, poltergeists....” He sighed, running his hand through his shaggy hair. “Yeah.”

“Okay, so what do these things... do? Just... exist?”

“Well... yeah.” Michael considered that for a moment. “They do what they've always done. They eat people, or possess them, or turn them into monsters like them, or kill them, or... do whatever they want to do with them. That's what monsters do. That's what monsters are made to do, that's what they have always done. They hunt people down, because that's what they do. And there are people who hunt them down, kill them before they kill us.”

“Oh yeah?” She frowned. “So that's what you are? You hunt these things down before they kill people? That woman would have killed me?”

He hesitated. “I don't think she actually would have. I think she was trying to... take you.”

Destiny blinked. “Take me. Where?”

“Not sure,” he admitted, sighing. “There are a lot of things we don't know for sure. But we do know that several kids have gone missing before, and they all get pulled back to those guys, the ones on the poster.”

“The Winchesters.” She said, frowning.

“Right. The Winchesters.” Michael nodded.

“Why? What's so special about them?” She asked, crossing her arms as she considered the other, frowning slightly. “What'd they do that makes these... things... want to track down these kids?”

“Well... first off, it's a little... awkward.” He cleared his throat. “Considering the circumstances, but... ah... I'm pretty sure that all of the missing kids are their children.”

Destiny blinked at him. “All of them.”

“Yeah,” he nodded.

“You said there was like a dozen kids missing, now.” Destiny said, slowly.

“Yeah.” He said, again.

“...you're basically telling me that not only have I possibly found my father, I have also possibly found dozens of half siblings?” She arched a brow, stunned.

“Or cousins.” He cleared his throat.

“You're kidding.” She groaned, and dragged one of the pillows over her head, as though trying to smother herself. “Son of a bitch, that is absolutely insane! And not the good kind of insane! That's a ridiculous bullshit kind of insane!”

Michael awkwardly patted her leg.

“So what was trying to get me, today?” She asked, frowning.

He groaned softly. “This is going to sound crazy, okay?”

She nodded, arms crossed, tapping her fingers against her arm, impatiently. “I don't care how insane it sounds, I want to know. So what is it?”

Michael sighed softly, scratching at the side of his jaw. “Angels.”

Destiny gaped at him. “...angels.”

He nodded, quietly.

She burst into laughter, flopping back against the pillows, roaring in incredulous laughter.

“Hey, I'm glad this is hilarious to you, but I'm actually being serious.”

She went silent, and reluctantly sat up, frowning slightly. With a serious, intent expression, Destiny steadily considered Michael, then said, “You really are being serious. That woman was an angel?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Turns out, not only do they exist, they're... angry sons of bitches.”

“She didn't look like an angel.” She frowned up at the ceiling, seriously considering that. “Neither did those guys. But they did go missing. They weren't normal people, right? And she did just sort of vanish, then appear, and... that light thing you did worked...”

“You see?” He sighed softly.

“...angels.” She repeated, staring up at the ceiling, stunned. “There are angels, and not only do they not have cool wings and cool swords, they are apparently asshole dicks that kidnap Winchester children.”

“Yeah.” He agreed, softly.

Destiny bolted up, brows furrowed, eyes narrowing as she glowered at him. “So these guys. What's special about them?”

“They're hunters.” He hesitated. “Like I am. They hunt down these things.”

“Why?”

He cleared his throat, and shook his head. “That's a good question. I've asked about that a few times myself, just... I wanna know why, you know? I know some things...” Michael scratched his jaw, as though trying to think of how to explain it, then finally said, “Their mother got killed when they were kids, so they grew up hunting. They spent their whole childhood trying to track down the stuff that went bump in the night, you know? A few years back, they, ah... they ended up here, and they... killed the thing that was trying to kill my brother and me.”

Destiny gaped at him. “Damn... that's... um... I'm glad that thing didn't get you.”

Michael snorted, smirking crookedly. “Glad to hear it. So I waited for awhile, but... once you realize the stuff is out there, it's like the stuff knows you're out there, too. It's like... knowledge is blood in the water for them.”

“So they know you exist, now.” She said slowly. “All because that one thing tried to kill you and your brother.”

“Yeah,” he nodded.

“And something is trying to hunt me down and kidnap me, so there's a good chance that this means that all of these things know about me, now, too.” Destiny said, clearing her throat. “I'm blood in the water for them, now.”

He sighed softly. “I wish I could tell you otherwise.”

“Great.” Destiny groaned.

“...if it helps, if you are the daughter of Dean Winchester, and the fact that this woman showed up today and tried to take you kind of proves that you are, hate to break it to you, but congrats, now you know who your dad is, then these things probably already knew how to find you. Winchesters are like... crack for creepy crawlies. All the things that go bump in the night try to hunt them down. Often.”

She shifted closer to him. “Why?”

“We're not really sure why,” he admitted, considering that. “I mean, I suppose you could ask them, that would probably tell you, but... I haven't talked to them in years.”

“Years?” She shifted back again, surprised, frowning. “...what do you mean, years? I thought you found me because of the whole.... Winchester thing, because they're being hunted down.”

“Oh, I did.” Michael nodded. “But I didn't get that from the Winchesters. I'm not even sure they're aware of this... hunt.”

Destiny blinked at him. “...so you're putting out posters with their faces on it, gathering up all their kids, hunting down the things that are kidnapping their kids, and you haven't once thought to maybe, I dunno, crazy idea, call them and tell them what's going on?!”

“Of course I have. And I've tried. But I don't know how to get a hold of them.”

“...they didn't train you to hunt, did they?”

“Ah...” he cleared his throat. “No. They didn't. Actually, they... really tried to tell me to just live a normal life and try not to think about stuff like the thing that tried to kill us again, but like I said, blood in the water. Once you get in on this stuff, it's really hard to get out of it. So I... I did the legwork myself, made a few connections... got into it. Honest, I don't really want to talk to them and have them go 'get the hell out of this, kid'. Or something.”

“...you're sure you don't know how to get a hold of them, right?” She frowned.

“Sorry.” He shrugged.

“Dammit.” She sighed, then slid off the bed. “Well, let's do some research, then. Let's go figure out how to get a hold of them.”

“Ah... Destiny...”

“I'm not kidding.” She said, firmly. “Let's go figure out how to get a hold of these Sam and Dean Winchester folks. Because if what you're saying is true, if they really are hunters that know how to hunt things, and that apparently Dean is my father, then I say we really need to talk to them, don't you think?”

He sighed, and followed her to the door. “Okay, okay. Fine. But if this opens a can of worms you don't want to see... s'not my fault.”

 

\---

 

Bobby wasn't having a great morning. Granted, any morning when he woke up hung over and with words from the book he'd been researching from printed in mirror form on his cheek, was guaranteed to be a terrible morning.

So he sipped at his coffee and grumbled slightly at the thought of the two boys – they'd call themselves men, naturally, but he knew they were boys – sleeping in his living room, one of them curled on the couch, the other flopped bonelessly in an armchair, which didn't look comfortable in the slightest. Sighing, softly, he tossed some leftover potatoes in a frying pan to prep up something to help them recover from their hangovers, and was pouring whiskey into his coffee when the phone rang.

Sighing, Bobby reached over, and grabbed the ringing line – the one with the masking tape and sharpie label that read “Home line”.

“Yeah?”

“Bobby!” Garth's voice came over the line, and he internally cringed. Garth was a nice enough guy, he really was, but he was absolutely brain dead. Maybe he was dropped as a child. He was probably dropped as a child. “Hey, that hunt thing, there's a thing going on... it's really weird. Really, really weird.”

“Which hunt, exactly?” He sighed softly, holding the phone between his chin and his shoulder, stirring up the potatoes. At least he could cook while talking.

“The one with the kids! You know, where all the kids are going missing?”

Bobby hesitated, spoon hovering over the frying pan for a moment. He resumed stirring a moment later, and said, slowly, “Yeah, I know. Been working on that hunt for a few days, now. What about it, Garth?”

“Well, there's this one kid, a... lemme see...” he could hear the sound of a notebook being flipped through, frantically, then Garth said, almost too cheerfully, “Andrew Penny. He went missing a few days ago, and I thought I should look into it, you know, to see if there was anything we'd missed.”

“Sure, Garth, that makes sense.” He sighed softly. “What's the point here? If it's about the glass, I already know about that.”

“No, it ain't about the glass... it's about the poster I found.”

“...poster?” He frowned, confused.

“Ha,” Garth grinned on the phone, and he could tell that was delighted to have figured out something that Bobby didn't know about. “There's someone out there givin' out posters... they say “Do you know these men” and gives a phone number to call if, and I quote, 'you or your parents know them'.”

Bobby furrowed his brow, pushing the potatoes around in the frying pan, listening to them sizzle. “Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah. And the men on the poster? They're yer boys, Bobby.”

He stopped, stunned.

“Bobby?” Garth asked, as though afraid the other man had disappeared. “Bobby? You still there?”

“Yeah, I'm here. Look, this poster yer talkin' about... you said it was Sam and Dean on it?!”

“Yeah.” He said, and that smug 'I know something you don't know' attitude he'd had a few moments before had faded slightly. Now he just sounded sort of nervous. “There's this poster with your boys on it, and it says 'Do you know these men', you know? It's sort of creepy to look at, though, cause it's this weird, like... wanted poster, I guess. And I don't get why it says 'if you or your parents know them', that's sort of weird...”

“No, I get exactly what it means.” He sighed. “What's the phone number?”

“608-845-4623.” Garth said, quickly. It was a good thing that Bobby was good at jotting things down, quickly, because he quickly had the number scrawled on the notepad that was normally stuck on the fridge.

“Thanks.” He grunted.

“So you gonna let me in on what's goin' on, Bobby?” Garth asked.

“Nope. Talk to you later, Garth.” He hung the phone up, smirking slightly when he just heard a few moments of the other hunter protesting before the phone clicked away, then picked the phone back up, and dialled the number he'd just transcribed. It rang a few times, then a girl's voice said, “Hello?”

Before he even had a chance to respond, he could hear a boy's voice in the background, and though he couldn't figure out exactly what was being said, he was pretty sure it was: “No, dammit, you're supposed to say 'thank you for calling 2400' – dammit, Destiny, give me the phone...”

“If they're calling for you, they'll say so,” she said, laughing, and said again, “Hello?”

“You the one with the posters?” Bobby asked, bluntly.

She was silent for a moment, then said, “Yeah. We got the poster. We're the ones with the poster.”

“Give me the phone!” The boy cried, and there was a lot of scuffling noises in the background, then a slightly breathless sounding young man said, “You're calling about the poster? You know the guys in the poster?”

“I might.” He said, noncommittally.

“Look, if you're just calling because you're curious, you can just hang up now.” He said, with a frustrated sigh. “But if you actually know them, then we can talk.”

“I know Sam and Dean.” He said, finally.

The boy let out a long sigh of relief, and finally said, “Is it one of your kids? Are they missing?”

Bobby arched his brow, a little confused – and very surprised by that – and said, “No, my boys are sleeping in the next room right now, and last I checked, it was their kids going missing, not them.”

There was a long moment of silence.

Finally, the boy said, “...are you Mister Winchester?”

Bobby snorted, bracing the phone between his chin and his jaw as he flicked the stove off, and scraped potatoes onto three plates. The boys would never forgive him if he didn't feed them, too. “Thank god, no, I ain't John Winchester. I'm an old friend of his, though, and Sam and Dean are as much my boys as they are John's. So they're my boys. Who are you, then?”

“Ah. My name's Michael.”

He hesitated. “...not the arch-angel?”

“Hell no.” The boy said with a fervency that made him think that the boy had at least an inkling of what angels really were. “Not an arch-angel. Just a guy. A guy that was almost fed on by a shtriga.”

Bobby slowly set down the plate he'd been holding, realization washing over him. “Oh. You're the boy Sam and Dean saved, what, seven years back? The one with the little brother that ended up in the hospital. They used you as bait.”

Michael cleared his throat. “...technically, yes.”

“So what are you doin' in the middle of this hunt, then?” He demanded, frowning.

“...I know I ain't really one of their kids.” Michael said, slowly. “But without them, I'd be dead, and so would my baby brother. Dean told me a lot, back in the day, about responsibility, and taking care of your little brother, and... so I'm trying to do what he taught me. Best I can. I've been trying to keep as many of their kids safe from the angels as I can.”

Bobby's eyes widened. “Wait. You've managed to save some of the kids?”

“...yeah.” He said, at last.

“You're kidding.”

“Look, mister, I ain't trying to be all super suspicious or anything, but I didn't keep these kids away from the angels by just telling them where to find us, so - “

“Balls, son, I am Sam and Dean's fucking father. Or as close as they're gonna get, you've seriously managed to keep some of the kids safe, I need to know where you are, where they are, and how many of them you've got there!”

“...seven.” Michael said at last.

“...you've got seven of their kids...”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I kinda didn't think they were really the types to go spreading children across the country side, but... ah... yeah, I got seven of them here, and there are a dozen missing, and there might be more out there, I don't know, but at least I got these ones... we're... at the motel. If you're really who you say you are, then Sam and Dean will know where that is, they'll be able to find us, easy. If you're not who you say you are,then the kids will stay safe. And if you're secretly an angel, well... try and come in. I welcome your attempt.”

“Heh. Kid after my own heart,” Bobby smirked, and headed into the living room with the portable, smirking. “We'll be there soon.”

“...will you be bringing Sam and Dean?”

“I said 'we', didn't I?”

“...thank you.”

“See you soon,” he said again, not really sure what else to say, and flicked the phone off, then kicked Sam's foot. “Wake up, sleepy head.”

Sam bolted awake, rubbing at his eyes, confused. “Bobby, what...?”

“You ever save a kid from a shtriga?”

Dean, sitting up across the room on the couch, rubbed his eyes, and said, “Yeah, we saved a bunch of kids from a shtriga, few years ago. It was a doctor, posing in a hospital to get lots of access to children, killing them. Same son of a bitch that tried to kill Sammy years ago, too. Why you ask, Bobby?”

“What was his name?”

Sam yawned, and cleared his throat. “Asher.”

“Naw, Asher was the baby brother. Michael was the one we used as bait for the shtriga. Why do you ask, Bobby?”

“Because he's hunting now, he knows what's taking the kids, and he's got seven of 'em holed up in that hotel you saved him in all those years ago.” Bobby answered, smirking slightly.

 

\---

 

It was with a strange sort of deja vu that Dean stepped into the little motel at 2400 Court. Last time he'd been here, he'd tossed over a fake credit card and been accused – not for the first time, sadly – of being gay for his brother. If he never had to hear a “two queens or one king” joke again, it would be too soon.

Michael was behind the counter again, but he wasn't a little scruffy kid anymore, he had a square, firm jaw, and his blond hair hung scruffy around his face, and he looked, to his surprise, like a man. He'd somehow expected that they'd come back to 2400 Court after seven years and find that the kid behind the counter was as tiny and spitfirey and bratty as he had been then, but the boy – the young man – behind the counter now had a serious expression in those blue eyes, and Dean realized that he'd probably seen more than just that shtriga, that he'd seen too much for a boy his age.

It was the same look he saw in his own eyes in the mornings, when he looked in the mirror.

“Hey, Michael.” He said, casually.

“Dean.” He stood, and headed around the corner, throwing his arms around him, hugging him tightly. To say that Dean didn't expect that reaction was something of an understatement. “Thank god you could come.”

“Hey, no problem.” He cleared his throat, giving Sam and Bobby the oh god come help me look, to which they both just smirked.

Michael stepped back, clearing his throat, awkwardly, and said, quietly, “Sorry about that. I just... I sort of figured if they were snatching your kids, they were probably going to snatch you too. So I'm glad to see that they haven't, you know? I think we'd be screwed if the entire Winchester family was wiped off the face of the planet.”

Sam snorted, shaking his head.

He looked up, and smiled at Sam, slightly flushed. “Hey. Sam. S'nice to see you too.” But Sam he didn't run forward to try to hug. He just sort of waved at him, and Dean stepped back, clearing his throat, trying to feel less out of place in this whole situation.

“So what is this,” Dean asked, smirking slightly. “You liked working with us so much that you decided you had to be a hunter, too?”

“I wish,” Michael snorted, shaking his head as he rounded the desk again, sitting behind it. “No. I, ah, didn't have much of a choice. Turns out, once you know they're there, they know you're there too. S'not much fun, not really, when everything is all normal and suddenly a werewolf is trying to kill you and your little brother. So yeah, there aren't a lot of choices out there for a young person, Dean, some of us have to become hunters. Just like you did.” He looked bitter, staring off into space for a moment, then jerked himself up, flushed. “Sorry, didn't mean to get all introspective on you, there. You ah... don't need my bullshit.” He laughed awkwardly.

Dean's expression, as he leaned on the desk, though, wasn't one of frustration – it was one of understanding, a disappointed sort of understanding, really. But he got it. “So. What've you got?”

“Angels.” Michael sighed, and looked up at them, as though expecting them to argue.

They didn't.

“You know, huh?” He sighed, running his hand through his hair. “Yeah, figured you might know. Their angels taking a kids. Big bad... not Hallmark card angels at all.”

“Yeah, we've noticed,” Sam smiled slightly, leaning on the counter beside Dean. “Figure that's why there are the symbols on the windows, huh, trying to keep them locked out? Keeping the angels away?”

He nodded. “It's working, far as I can tell.”

“Hm. We could try and call in Cas to see if it works or not, but I'm not really sure I want to bring an angel here and possibly get all their eyes on it.” Dean sighed softly, looking around the little office. It hadn't changed any since the last time they had been here. Everything just seemed exactly the same, only Michael's mother wasn't coming in to tell him to do it right, and Asher wasn't sitting in the back room waiting for his brother. It was just a quiet room, and there he sat, a young man, a hunter, now.

But there was someone in the back room.

She stepped out of the room, quietly, thumbs hooked in the pockets of her jeans as she considered them all for a long moment.

“Destiny...” Michael sat up straighter, startled. “You should, uh... probably wait for us, we got some stuff to talk about...”

“Hey.” She grumbled. “I'm not a kid. You're Dean Winchester.”

He arched a brow, considering her. “I am.”

“I'm Destiny Bancroft.” She smirked faintly. “You knew my mom, Chastity, in high school. Least I'm pretty sure you did, if the message you left in her yearbook is anything to go on.”

“Castity Bancroft?” His brows furrowed as he considered that for a moment, then his eyes widened. “Oh shit, yeah, I did...”

“Oh god, Dean...”

He winced, running his fingers through his hair, sheepishly. “Hey, yeah... hey Destiny.”

“You're my father, aren't you?” She crossed her arms.

Sam gaped at the girl.

Dean cleared his throat. “Considering the circumstances, I'm gonna probably have to go with 'yes'.”

“...you slept with a girl named 'Chastity'?” Bobby said, almost incredulously.

He cleared his throat. “I think if you name your daughter Chastity, it's like... in the fine print of the birth certificate that she's going to be a whore.”

Destiny cleared her throat. “Still here, guys.”

“Oh right. Shit. Sorry.” Dean cleared his throat, awkwardly, and said, “So, ah... this is.... unusual for me. Hey kid. Ah... nice to meet you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, this is pretty much exactly how I didn't think meeting my father would go, but... who cares, guess you're my dad, and nothing is really the way we expect anyway.” Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward, and offered her hand. “Besides, based on my talks with Michael, I kinda get the impression I've just found myself in a really really fucked up family. So hi, dad, I'm your fifteen year old daughter, and welcome to the crap that is angels trying to kidnap us. If you've got any idea why they're doing it, i'd really like to hear, and even if you don't, you could at least shake my hand, it's only polite, really.”

“Ah.” Dean cleared his throat, and sheepishly shook her hand. “Sorry about that.”

“Hey, s'not every day one of your kids walks up to you and says 'hi, I'm the illegitimate child you didn't know you had'.” Destiny hesitated, and dropped his hand. “....that's going to happen a lot today. Just... you know. As a warning.”

“Is it?” He asked, voice slightly faint.

Sam clapped his brother on the shoulder, grinning, and said, “Come on, Dean. You have a lot of kids we have to meet.”

“We were able to get in contact with all the mothers, except for one... his mother had been killed by a spider lady thing a little bit ago.” Michael smiled tightly. “But the police in town recognized Sam, so... I'm going with he's actually your kid, not Dean's. Also, I'd stay away from Rhode Island, if I were you, the cops really seem to want to write you up for something.”

Sam swallowed. “We were there, a couple weeks ago. Trust me, I'm never going back there.”

“...good plan.” Michael nodded, and stood, leading the way down out of the office, towards the rooms.

As they walked out of the room, Dean stuck close to his brother – partially to keep the hell away from Destiny, who seemed like a nice enough kid, but kids in theory was one thing, and a walking talking teenaged child was an entirely different thing – and murmured, “A baby, picked up in Rhode Island a few months ago, Sam?”

He cleared his throat, and nodded. “Apparently I had some children... during that year.”

“How many do you think there are?”

Sam glanced at him, swallowing his fears, and running his hand through his hair. There were too many things he still didn't remember about that year, and he was trying to be good and not... scratch at the wall, but when things came up like 'how many children I might have and if I just knew what had happened in the last year I might be able to give you an answer to that question', it was really hard for him to not scratch, to not pry, to not dig. “Honestly, Dean, I don't have any idea.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling.” He sighed. “You starting to feel like there's some kind of cosmic joke going down here? Like there is no possible way that this just... happened? Like maybe something meddled?”

“We've had a lot of things meddle, Dean.”

“I know, which is why I usually notice signs of the meddling. I don't think we have kids because we're idiots, and I don't think we have this many kids because of some kind of coincidence. I think... something meddled.”

“How?” He asked, frowning slightly.

“...I don't know,” he admitted.

“What would meddle in our lives like that?” He asked, frowning.

“Well, I talked to Cas about that,” he murmured, running his hand through his own hair. “He had some... theories. He thinks it's Raphael, kidnapping the kids.”

“...why would Raphael want our children?” Sam gaped at him.

“Because we won't play ball in his 'let's restart the apocalypse' grandplan.” Dean smiled tightly, glancing at him. “But he still needs a Winchester to be the vessels for Michael and Lucifer, right? So if we won't play nice and roll over and do what he tells us to, he can get a kid that will, a kid that just won't know better.”

Sam let out a long, shaky breath.

“Yeah.” Dean agreed, quietly.

“There are seven kids here,” Michael was saying, as he opened the door to one of the rooms. Two kids looked up as they entered, a boy about four, and a little girl of about five. They were playing with blocks and a bunch of little cars, battered and old, like they had been someone else's toys a long time ago, and had been well loved, but still, the children stood when Michael came in, and the little boy threw his arms around the teenager's legs, trying to hide behind him. 

“Hey, kiddo.” He said, softly, brushing dark blond curls back.

“Who's that, Micahel?” He asked, curiously.

He glanced back at Sam, at Dean, at Bobby. At Destiny, standing in the doorway with blond curls hanging around her face and green eyes bright and looking so very much like Mary Winchester that it hurt. “These are some friends. They're nice people, promise.”

“They're the boys on the pictures.” The girl said, cheerfully, looking up at them.

Bobby smiled slightly, and said, “She's a smart kid.”

“Of course she's a smart kid,” Dean said, not without a level of pride. “She's got a smart father.”

“My dad's name is Stewart and he's really tall.” She said, cheerfully.

Michael cleared his throat, and stepped closer to them, murmuring, quietly, “I've trying to avoid telling them what's actually going on... at least the little ones. They don't deserve to have their whole world ripped apart just because... something's meddling with us. You know what what I mean?”

Dean hesitated, and nodded.

“Right. Well, these are Vanessa and Nicky, they've been here the longest. Sweet kids, surprised they haven't panicked about the fact that they've been here for two weeks, and not at home with their families, but we'll figure it out, right?”

Nicky stepped forward, and tugged on the edge of Bobby's coat. “Are you coming to take us home?”

Bobby cleared his throat, looking down at the little boy. “Sorry, not yet.”

“But the nice lady said that they'd take us home,” he said, frowning.

“Lady?” Michael repeated, crouching beside the child. “Nicky? What lady are you talking about?”

“The nice lady at the window!” He beamed up at the older boy, laughing when the teenager picked him up, giggling up at him. “The nice lady at the window said she was coming soon to take us all home, soon as she'd gotten the group all together, she was coming to take us home.”

“Oh god.” He glanced up at Sam and Dean. “Even if that was just some do-gooder who saw a couple kids by themselves in a hotel and figured they should report them or something...”

“It's not good.” Dean agreed.

“We should get outta here,” Bobby agreed. “I ain't saying my place is much safer, but - “

“Dean!”

The man looked up sharply, and gaped at the man standing at the end of the bed. “Cas?!”

“Castiel, what - ?” Michael stepped forward, confused.

“There's no time to explain.” The angel said, moving forward quickly, grabbing Dean's arm. “Raphael is coming. He's found the place somehow, I don't know how. But we have to get out of here, and get out of here now, or he will get the children.”

“How'd you know we were here...?” He said, slowly, confused.

“I said, there is no time.”

And then the room exploded.

Actually, to call what happened an explosion was a bit of a misnomer. There was an eruption of light, a blast of sound, and the walls themselves seemed to collapse, though they still stood. It was as though a supernova had opened in the middle of the room, fracturing time and space itself, rupturing the air itself. They threw hands in front of their eyes, but it did no good – the light was so bright and so sharp that it went straight through their hands, their eyelids, bored back into their minds themselves... it was a sharp, stabbing, aching pain that was simultaneously achingly beautiful, like nirvana had been forced upon them, bright and sharp and desperately desirable but it wasn't their choice, and they did want it but they didn't want it now they wanted it when the time came they didn't want it to be forced on them but it was and it was like sweet beautiful agony...

“Cas!” Dean bellowed against the raging joy that took over him like a consuming, devouring beast, and wasn't sure if he should sing or scream with a familiar hand touched his and ripped him away from the pleasurable pain.

He dropped to the floor of Bobby's living room, coughing for air, desperately, filled with an unimaginable sorrow and disappointment at having been taken away from all that bright beauty.

“Dean. Dean.”

He looked up, almost surprised to find Castiel crouched in front of him, cupping his jaw, looking into his eyes, a look of concern and panic in his eyes.

“...Cas?” He breathed, confused.

“Ah. I was afraid you were...” The angel shook his head, and helped him to his feet, though the hunter was unsteady as he clung to him. Sam and Bobby was sprawled in front of the old man's desk, and Michael was gagging on his own air as he struggled to his feet in the kitchen, clinging to a kitchen chair to get himself up. Beside him, clutching her stomach and gasping for air, Destiny struggled to her hands and knees.

“What happened?” Dean demanded, looking between Cas and the girl. “Cas, only Destiny – only one of them - “

“I wasn't able to get the others,” he said, voice tight.

“We have to go back, we have to - “

“There's no way I am taking you back there.” Castiel said, tightly, shaking his head. “You don't understand, Dean.... that... that was not normal. That was more than I expected, that was... that was arch-angels bringing the entire force of heaven on us... they took them. They took all of them. The children there, the children elsewhere... Raphael isn't pulling any punches, he's declaring war.”

“He already declared war on you.”

“Not on me,” he shook his head. “I declared war on him. He's declared war on you. The Winchesters. He's declared war on all of you.”

Destiny staggered out of the kitchen, coughing, looking up at them in confusion. “What the hell was that?!”

Castiel hesitated, looking down at her in confusion. “Who are you?”

“Destiny?” She said, frowning up at Castiel. “I'm one of the kids.”

“You're one of the children? But...” The angel looked confused, stepping closer to her, touching her forehead lightly. A look of surprise flitted through his blue eyes, then he glanced up at Dean. “We need to get you all out of here, and quickly.”

“Bobby's is safest, though...” Sam said, wincing as he limped forward.

“No.” He shook his head. “It's compromised.”

“Well, where the hell do we go, then?” Bobby frowned, wiping blood off of his chin. He'd bashed into the lip of the desk as he'd fallen. “Balls. You boys keep turning my house into a battlefield, you know that? We really need to stop you doing that.”

“I don't know. I don't think anywhere is safe.” Castiel took a deep breath. “Not as long as there are Winchesters on the earth.”

“Which means as long as Sam, Destiny, and I are alive.”

He nodded, quickly, looking away from them, past them, to Michael. The boy looked torn, absolutely wrecked, like he had failed, and he knew it. He had been the one to gather all the children together, he had been the one trying to save them all because Sam and Dean had saved him, once, and he had failed, the children were gone. All of them were gone. “Dean, we need to ward your car.”

 

\---

 

There wasn't much to Scranton, Pennsylvania, at least, not from the little glimpse of it they'd gotten so far. It had less than a hundred thousand people, so he really didn't know how they got off on calling themselves a city, but they did, and so far, he hadn't seen enough to be impressed.

They were parked on the outskirts of town in the parking lot for a local Walmart. His brother and Bobby were sleeping in the backseat, and Michael and Destiny were squished in the front seat. Sometimes Castiel rode with them, sometimes he didn't. But they'd ridden four hours, now, and once the others were asleep, Dean had finally pulled over, and climbed out of the car to sit on the front hood. His fingers ran idly over symbols that were carved in the hood now, and part of him mourned the now imperfections, and part of him thought Cas had done a damn fine job. He had, too, pressing his palms against the slick black metal of the hood, and somehow pressing the carvings into it, so that there was no chipped paint, no obvious marring. It was like the hood of the Impala had been made this way, somehow, to be covered in scrawling, meandering Enochian sigils that Dean couldn't read but had been told by a harried Castiel would somehow keep what little was left of their rag tag family alive – if they just stayed in the damn car.

So he sat on the hood, and debated the merits of trying to leave to get some food, and decided in the long run it'd be better to just wait and get some take out. In case Cas was right, and they really couldn't step outside of this car's vicinity, or angels would find them.

He sighed, softly, and felt like a bird whose wings had been clipped.

He didn't look up when the car door opened, then closed – he knew the sound of his baby's doors more than he knew the sound of his own breathing – but he did look up, surprised, when the weight that settled on the hood of the car, beside him, wasn't his baby brother's mass.

It was a teenaged girl, one that it almost hurt to look at. She was a beautiful young woman. And she looked like his mother.

Which mean, he supposed, that she looked like him.

“Hey.” He said, quietly,

“Hey,” she said, sighing softly as she looked out over the parking lot. Finally, she said, “Nice car.”

Dean snorted. “Thanks.”

“No, I mean it. '67 was a good year for the Impala. Less sports car than other years, more just... classic muscle car. I like classic muscle cars. My favourite's the Dodge Charger. 66 was a good year for it.” She smiled softly, tugging her heels up onto the bumper, knees pulled up to her chest, and crossed her arms over her knees. “I like cars that have power behind them, like they actually mean something.”

He laughed softly. “This baby actually means something.”

“That's what I thought.” She smiled softly, glancing at him. “See, you and me, we're not so different.”

“No, seeing as how you're apparently the daughter I never knew I had, I think it sort of makes perfect sense that you and are an awful lot alike.”

She smiled up at him. “So. Dean Winchester.”

“So. Destiny... Bancroft, was it? Pleased to meet you.”

“Why are angels trying to kidnap me and apparently kill you?” She asked, bluntly, resting her chin on her folded arms.

“Because me brother, your Uncle Sam, I guess, we royally pissed them off.”

“Your buddy, Cas, he's an angel, right?” Destiny shook her head. “He doesn't seem like he's pissed off, he kinda seems like he wants to jump your bones.”

“...watch your mouth, young lady.”

“Hey, you don't get to pull 'daddy arguments' on me until you've known me for at least, I dunno, a week. Right now, you're just some stranger that I happen to get half of my DNA from. So hold off on the 'telling me to watch my mouth', I'll say whatever the hell I want to say. And trust me, I'm a bit of a potty mouth. Deal with it. So anyway, think about it. He doesn't seem to pissed at you.”

“Okay, fine, at the moment, Cas isn't pissed at me. But I still don't appreciate my teenage daughter telling me that she thinks my friend wants to have sex with me.”

“He does.” She hesitated. “Do angels do sex?”

“Angels do sex.” He hesitated. “Well... some angels do sex, anyway. Angels have done sex, before. As for Cas himself... I don't think he really gets it. He thinks it all comes down to a pizza man. But let's not talk about Cas and sex anymore, all right? I just... get a little... wiggins, thinking about you telling me this. so. Let's just talk about the whole... why the angels are so angry thing. They're angry because of the apocalypse.”

“Oh, right, cause the demons are trying to end the world and they don't want it to, right?”

Dean laughed, shaking his head. “No. No, the angels want the apocalypse.”

Destiny blinked up at her father, confused. “Why in the world would the angels, the like... guardians of humans... want to end the world?”

“They're not... 'guardians of humans',” he sighed. “Not really. They're warriors of God.”

“Isn't that the same thing?”

“No, no, that's... sadly... definitely not the same thing.” Dean shifted back up on the hood, slightly, relieved that the hood was strong enough to hold him, even with Cas' “enhancements” to the hood's design. “See, the angels hate humans. Because God made them first, made them his loving little babies... then a few hundred years, or thousand year, or twenty minutes, or whenever, later, God made humans. Little... squirmy... pink things. Made in his own image – which is something the angels ain't got.”

Destiny frowned. “I may not be an expert, but I saw the angel that Michael blasted earlier, and I've seen Cas. They look pretty human.”

“They take vessels. Meat suits. Demons do it too, they... take over a human body, ride it.”

“...that sounds naughty.”

“Well. It is, I guess. Sammy once full on had a chick inside of him for a week.” He drawled, smirking, still amused by the memory of it. “But see, there's this thing. Demons can take anybody, so long as they're weak enough, which means... maybe they've just had a shitty day, or haven't had enough coffee, or they had a fight with their mom. Any chink in the armour, and a demon can take over their body. Unless they have wards.”

“Wards?” Destiny looked up at her father, frowning slightly.

He shifted to face her, and tugged the collar of his shirt down, exposing a black tattoo, a star in a circle of flames. “This means a demon can't just take my body, not unless it's... someone a lot stronger than most demons.”

“...should I get one of those?”

“Probably.” He smirked, releasing his collar to lean back on the hood, his palms pressed against the metal. “But not until after all of this stuff, until after we can actually stop touching the car.”

Destiny snorted. “Good point. Hard to get some tattoo artist to come out to the car.”

“Yeah.” He smirked.

“So you said demons can take anybody,” Destiny said quietly, still considering him, thoughtfully. “Does that imply that angels can't?”

“That's what I'm implying.” He smirked slightly, and reached up, awkwardly, to set his hand on her shoulder for a moment. It was a brief touch, supposed to be comforting, but she looked so startled that he tugged his hand off, and let it rest on the hood again. “Sorry.”

“Hey, s'okay. Just not used to having a father, you know?”

“Nothing wrong with fathers,” he shrugged. “I never really had much of one. I mean, he was my hero, he was my world, but... never really had much of one. He was a great hunter. But he was a shitty father.”

“Michael says you're the best hunter in the world.”

“Michael has a case of hero worship because I saved him when he was eleven.” He smirked, laughing. “I'm not that good. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bad, I'd daresay that I am actually pretty damn good. But the best in the world? Not a chance.”

“Well, maybe he is biased. But you don't seem half bad so far. All hunters should have kick ass cars, not shitty second hand SUVs they get from their mom.” She smirked slightly. “Get Michael in a better car, and I might actually take him more seriously.”

“Oh god,” he groaned. “You've got the hots for Michael.”

Destiny smirked up at him. “Gonna tell me I can't, 'dad'? After all, how old were you when you had me?”

“Sixteen, and that is something I do not want my own children to repeat, trust me.” He rolled his eyes, shaking his head.

“So. I'll make sure to not get knocked up by the kid whose got a crush on you.” Destiny smirked, and Dean laughed, shaking his head, realizing exactly how much this girl really was a lot like him. Go figure, it was exactly like Ben all over again, only with a slightly frightening need to keep her safe. Oh god, this was what his father would have been like if Sammy had been a girl, or something, stupidly overprotective. “So. Angels? Can't possess everybody?”

“You're really like a dog with a bone on that one,” he rolled his eyes, shaking his head.

“Can't imagine where I inherited that one from.” She rolled her eyes. “You are aware of the fact that I am like, the ultimate nurture versus nature case study, right? Raised by a stripper mother but disturbingly similar to a father I've never met? Oh yeah, psychologists would love to get their hands on me. Now. Angels. Possession. Chop chop.”

Dean smirked, shaking his head. “All right. Angels. They don't just possess anybody, they have to have certain vessels. Certain families, certain bloodlines.”

“I am going to take a giant leap of faith here and assume that “Winchester” is a name on the list of pre-approved angel vessels.”

He snorted. “You figured that out faster than we did.”

“What can I say, long history of being the jaded kid that read too many books.” She smirked, considering him. “So... why is being a bloodline of angel vessels enough to piss off angels?”

“Because here's the big difference.” Dean said, slowly. “Demons can just take anybody, right? Angels can't. Angels have to get permission before they can just take you.”

She blinked at him. “...you have to say yes before the angel gets the right to brain rape you?”

“They can be very... persuasive... like removing your little brother's lungs unless you say yes...” he sighed softly. “But if you ever accused one in court, they have proof that you agreed. They're good at that, there are loop holes, and... everything. You have to say yes before they can get in your head.”

“So what happens once they're in?”

“I dunno.” He admitted. “Not exactly. Cas... he used to be a man named Jimmy Novak. Met the guy a few times, he was nice, but... kind of boring. But he got killed, more than one time, and... when he came back, he was just... Cas. Not Cas in a Jimmy suit, like before, just Cas. Although he looked exactly like Cas.”

“Hm.” She considered that seriously. “But there have got to be tons of families out there that can take angels. Like... the Novak family.”

“Sure, the Novak family work as vessels. Lots of people out there work as vessels. But see... most vessels are just holding... standard angels. Cas, for instance, is just a guy. Like, a pretty cool guy, but he's not high up on the power ladder or anything. Or, well, he wasn't, at least not until he helped me and Sam avert the apocalypse, got blown up, and came back to life when God or, someone, brought him back in one piece. Standard angels, fine. They could hop out of a vessel body and just... the person is gonna have a lot of weird memories and a lot of terrifying dreams, but they're fine. Unless they got shot or something while possessed, but that happens to demon possession, too. But they could be fine.”

“There are... not standard angels?”

“Arch angels,” he agreed.

“Well, I don't like the sounds of that. Arch angels sound shitty.”

Dean snorted, shaking his head. “Arch angels suck. A lot. I mean, there aren't many of them, so at least they have that going for them, but they suck. And in none of the good ways. They suck in all the bad ways. Okay, there was one that wasn't so bad, mostly cause he actually had a sense of humour, but he also turned Sammy into a car, so... six of one, half a dozen of the other.”

“...he turned Sam into a car?”

He snorted, shaking his head. “Crazy weekend.”

“So... arch angels are like... crazy powerful, then.” Destiny said, shaking her hair loose, and tugging her legs up onto the Impala hood itself, folding her legs Indian style and turning to face Dean. “Like, alter reality and change the world sort of thing?”

“Yeah, they're crazy powerful.” He sighed softly, staring out over the darkness of the parking lot. “And all that power... it does something to the vessels. It drains them. Leaves them in a vegetative state. They just sit there and stare off into space and... drool a lot.”

“...ew.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” He smirked, shaking his head. “But there are a few vessels out there that can take 'em without going all vegetable. And so far, the only family I know that can take them without going drooly coma victim are the Winchesters.”

“...that sounds... unpleasant.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “The big... showdown. The apocalypse, it was all supposed to come down to two people. Michael the arch angel, and Lucifer, the... well, the devil.”

“But it didn't?” Destiny asked, curiously.

“Oh no, it did.” Dean smiled faintly, looking down. “There were supposed to be two vessels. One for Lucifer, one for Michael.”

“Okay...?”

Dean took a deep breath, and said, finally, “I was meant to be Michael's vessel. At first, the whole universe seemed to want me to do it, but... Cas... Cas was like... my guardian angel, or something. Dunno why, I never did anything that would deserve having angelic protection, but whatever. There he was. Telling me that he was there to help me, and... at first... well, it's a long story, but I did say yes, finally. He beat the shit out of me for it, but... in the end... they didn't want me anymore anyway. They took my little brother.”

“I thought you said Sammy was supposed to be Lucifer's vessel, “ she frowned.

“He was.” He nodded, tightening his jaw.

“Dean?”

“We had another brother.” He said, softly. “We never actually... met him. Our father never mentioned him... never told us he existed. By the time we found out, he'd been killed by ghouls. Ghouls are... ah... kind of like ghosts, but... they eat people. My father had killed most of the ghouls, so they took revenge by killing his family. But the angels were so desperate to have a vessel that could contain Michael for the final battle that they... they found a way to raise him from the dead. Which, okay, fine, they'd done that to me before, too, but my body was intact. We had cremated him.”

“They're... very powerful.” She whispered, starting to understand. “Wait, brought you back from the dead?”

Dean cleared his throat. “I have been killed more times than I can count. Your old man is a death magnet.”

“Good to know.” She swallowed. “...so you have, what, had near-death experiences?”

“No, ah... Destiny, when I say I have been killed, I mean it, I have really been killed. I've been shot.... blown up... stabbed... and I sold my soul to bring my brother back from the dead. That's what got me killed that time. That's... sort of the Winchester curse.”

“Dying unpleasantly and being brought back from the dead?”

“Um... selling our souls to save our family, actually.” He cleared his throat, awkwardly. “Dad did it, I did it, Sammy did it, Bobby did it, my mother did it... hell, my grandpa tried to do it. It's sort of a tradition, you might say.”

“Well, I sure as hell ain't gonna do it! I barely know you!”

Dean snorted. “Don't. I'd never forgive you if you sold your soul for one of us. Don't do it, kiddo. I mean, Winchester souls are worth a lot, apparently, but for the love of god, please don't sell your soul for me? It would kill me.”

“I ain't gonna sell me soul.” She smirked, then hesitated. “Don't sell yours for me, either.”

“Technically, I can't make any promises, but I'm pretty sure I've reached my soul-selling limits, so I think you're probably safe.” He smirked.

“Well, yeah, unless I get ganked by angels.” She rolled her eyes.

Dean snorted, reaching over to rest his hand on her shoulder again, a light touch, sort of nervous, mostly just hoping that she wasn't going to freak out. After all, she was his daughter, even though they'd barely met, wasn't there supposed to be some kind of paternal bond here, or something?

Destiny didn't jump this time – she just sighed, heavily, and leaned on his shoulder. “...thanks.”

“What for?” He snorted.

“For explaining.” She said, gently, staring off over the parking lot with him. “For... putting up with my complete greenness at this. For not... trying really hard to be some creepy... Mister Rogers dad. Honestly? Kinda like the idea of you just... being a friendly guy I can talk to.”

“Heh. I'm no good at being a dad. Being a brother, that I can do.”

“So I guess this is the time where I get used to having a big brother, and not a dad?” She asked, smiling sheepishly.

“Naw... I could learn to be a dad. I was a pretty shitty older brother anyway.”

Destiny snorted.


	3. sparrowshellcat | Big Big Bang 2011 - Sins of the Father - Part III

 It was Bobby who let out the undignified yelp when Castiel appeared between him and Sam on the back seat. 

Dean glanced back into the rear view mirror, and just sighed softly. He was sort of used to Castiel showing up out of nowhere for no real reason and suddenly _being_ there. He kind of _had_ to get used to it, because the angel didn't really give him much of a choice, to be honest. “Hey Cas.”

“ _Balls_ , I almost wet myself you asshole angel!”

“It is very nice to see you too, Bobby.” Castiel said with a sarcastic bent to his voice that _no one_ in the car managed to miss. “We need to talk, Dean.”

“Ah... talk.”

“It is difficult to do so with everyone here. I require a more private conversation.”

“Well, you're the one who made the car the only safe place in the world for Winchesters to be, so I think it's probably a good idea if I stay here, at least for now... besides, I also happen to be the one _driving_ it.”

And just like that, he wasn't.

“Son of a - “ Dean spun, looking around the empty alley they were standing in with a panicked look. “My _car_ , I was _driving_ that!”

“I had the presence of mind to _park_ it, Dean, it is the only place on this planet currently warded against both angels and demons, I would hardly just allow it to be destroyed because I needed to talk to you. As well, what is left of the Winchester family is within that vehicle. We need to talk.”

He cleared his throat. “...you said that.”

“I meant it. Raphael has Ben.”

The colour drained from Dean's face. “...what?”

“You were right. I didn't know he would be targeted, because I had gotten the impression from you that he was not actually your son. He is, and he is gone.”

Dean slumped against the wall of the alley, eyes wide and stunned. Over a year ago, before Sam and Dean had gone for the final showdown with Lucifer, Sam had made him promise that he would go try and make a life with Lisa, if anything happened to him. And yeah, Lucifer had won, and Sam had gone to hell, and Dean had _tried_ to do what his brother had asked of him, he really had. Hell, the night after Cas had magically come back alive and saved him and Bobby, he'd gone to her house. He'd tried. But one night was all he could handle. One night, to talk to her, to make sure she and Ben were safe. But he knew that if he was _there_ , he would bring danger and harm to her, so... he left the next morning, quietly, and he never went back. He hadn't even spoken to her in over a year. After all, she had told him, no uncertain terms, that Ben was _not_ his son.

“...he's my son.”

“I'm aware that there have been... a number of such revelations lately, but... this one was... unexpected.” He admitted. “He was not part of the pattern.”

“There is a _pattern_?”

“It was what I was telling you, that there is a map across the country, of your children. And Sam's. Destiny and Ben... neither of them fit the pattern. I did not anticipate... either of them.”

“You sound like you _planned_ this or something.”

Castiel hesitated.

“ _Cas_?”

He looked up, and shook his head. “I could not have anticipated this.”

“But did you _plan_ it?”

“Of course I didn't _plan_ it, Dean.” Castiel said coldly. “I would never try to cause you pain like this. I would have never wanted anything like this to happen. Raphael... he found the pattern before I did. And is exploiting it. Violently. I'm not _entirely_ sure that he intends only to use your children as vessels. And if he does... I don't... I don't think he wants to _just_ open the cage.”

“What do you mean?” Dean asked, frowning.

“Arch angels.”

“Yeah. Raph, Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer.” Dean threw up his hands. “Am I missing someone?”

“Yes.”

Dean glanced over at his friend, brows furrowed. “...who am I missing, Cas?”

“Michael, Gabriel, Lucifer, Raphael. The Metatron. Sariel, Raguel, Uriel, Remiel, Zadkiel, Jophiel, Haniel, Chamuel, Selaphiel, Jegudiel, Barachiel, Sealtiel, Saraquel, Azrael, Ridwan, Maalik, Munkar and Nakir the gatekeepers, Karaman, and Katibeen.”

Dean gaped at him.

“Dean?” He asked, quietly.

“...how many arch angels are we talking, Castiel?”

“There are twenty five.” He said, clearing his throat. “Of those, one has a vessel, two are dead. So twenty two that I am expecting. There were a dozen missing before, seven at Michael's motel... and three more have vanished from across the rest of the country, including Ben. They have twenty two.”

Dean slid down the wall itself, slumping to sit on the concrete floor of the alley. “Twen – Raphael has _twenty two_ of mine and Sam's children.”

“...yes.” Castiel slowly crouched in front of Dean, reaching out to lay his hand on his knee. “I do not think that all of the children will be able to do _much_ with some of the children, after all, several of them are infants, and others are toddlers. I imagine the more... powerful... arch angels will chose to take the older children's bodies. But in either case - “

“Stop, stoppit.” Dean held up his hands, eyes too bright. “Stop talking about them like they're just _things_ that Raphael is going to use. They're children. They're _my_ children. And Sam's. They just _kids_ , Cas, they had no ... they had _nothing_ to do with this war. I mean, it was low to bring back Adam, but this... _this_...”

Castiel sighed softly, resting both of his palms on Dean's knees, quietly, considering him seriously. “I apologize. I just... don't want this to hurt more than it has to, in case we can't stop them.”

“We are _going_ to stop him. We have stopped him before. We can do it again.”

“...we can try.” Castiel agreed.

“Oh no. No. Don't talk like that, you are – you're my man, Cas, we're buddies, we're soldiers in arms... you – you beat the shit out of me for considering the idea that I should say yes to Michael. We've been through a _lot_. Tell me we are going to get our _kids_ back, Cas.”

Castiel considered him with an almost tragic expression, sad puppy dog eyes. He'd have thought that was an angel power, those sad puppy eyes, except that he had met a _lot_ of angels, and Cas was the only one who could give him that look. He was the only angel that made him feel like he could be anything he wanted to be, even if that was just some idiot redneck hunter that didn't want to be a meat suit for an angel. “...we will get your children back.”

“...thanks, man.” He said, swallowing thickly.

“Dean.”

He looked up to meet his eyes, trembling slightly. 

“You are my only friend. Should anything happen to any of those children... I want you to know that I would do _anything_ to stop it. And I will, if I can.”

“Thank you, Cas.” He murmured, quietly. “I just... what the _hell_ do we do about this?”

“Hopefully, you won't go to hell.” He smirked faintly. “Winchesters are notoriously difficult to retrieve from there. However, we may have to accept the possibility that we may need help.”

“Help?” He repeated. “Against twenty two arch angels in my children's bodies.”

“Sometimes, Dean, there are things that have to be done in order to maintain freedom. If we want to keep your children safe, if we want to get them _back_ from the arch angels that will likely take them, we will need to somehow... exorcise them from their bodies. We know that this is possible, but the sheer power that would be required...”

“What, you need an arch angel to exorcise an arch angel? Cause I got news for you, Cas, there was only _one_ cool arch angel, and Gabe is dead. And God ain't answering prayers.”

“I know.” He agreed, quietly. 

“So what's powerful enough to exorcise these bitches? _Eve_?!”

“As distasteful as the idea is, yes. She would, I believe, be powerful enough to free them...”

“ _Oh hell no_ , Cas.” He said, fiercely.

“I was merely saying.” He held up his hands, palms spread, trying to calm him down. “I know you do not approve of this suggestion, I am merely saying that it _is_ a suggestion. I don't suggest it, not at all. There are other possibilities. Demons, if necessary, though obviously not recommended. Gods...”

“Who, like _Kali_?”

“She is a possibility,” he nodded. “Thor, perhaps.”

“Thor. Oh great, now we're recruiting comic book heroes. Can we at least get Captain America and Iron Man, then? Cause if we're going to be having Thor, a party just isn't a party without the whole friggin' Avengers team.”

“Dean... you are making this deliberately difficult.”

“Well, I'm _sorry_ if trying to figure out which of the things I _hunt_ would be best to try and hel me save my _children_ from being used as arch angel _meatsuits_!”

Castiel sighed, heavily. “Now you're being childish.”

“And what would you _rather_ I do?!”

“Dean...” The angel said, gently. “You are my friend. But this is _war_. And even if we don't want to fight it, the war has come to us. We have to accept that, and face what is coming. Do you understand?”

“Cas, I don't know if I can. I thought the whole point was that this shit was _over_.”

“That was meant to be the point.” He said, quietly.

“Cas... what do we do now _?”_

“I would say 'we fight', but I have been lead to believe that this is approximately  _ the _ most stereotypical thing that one could say, in this situation. So instead, I will come up with something slightly more appropriate.”

Dean snorted. “What's more appropriate than that?”

Castiel smirked slightly, then surged forward, and kissed him. 

Well, no, that wasn't entirely accurate either, it was more of an all consuming, desperate press of lips to lips that surged quickly into much more than that, into Castiel all but crawling into Dean's lap as he cupped his jaw, plundering his mouth, one hand sliding back to slide into the other's hair. And Dean tried to buck him off, at first, but within moments, was groaning pathetically, clutching at Castiel's trench coat as he kissed him back with a fervour that surprised even him. 

Finally, Castiel broke the kiss, and Dean groaned softly. “...what was  _ that _ ?”

“I learned it from - “

“If you say the  _ Pizza Man _ , I am going to kill you.” He groaned.

“I saw more of your videos, actually. I leaned  _ that _ one from a plumber. Are you aware that there are movies in which two or more men do what the Pizza Man and that woman did?”

Dean groaned, thumping his head back against the wall. “I am going to regret that I ever said this, but yes, I was aware of that.”

“Mm. I found them... more interesting.”

“Oh god, porn turned an angel gay,” he groaned, then cracked open a single eye. “Just... for the record... before we do something I am going to regret... angels can't get pregnant, can they? I mean, just for the record.”

  
 

\---

  
 

“Holy  _ shit _ ?!”

Michael winced, pressing his palm against his ear. “That was... really loud, Destiny.”

She winced, flushed, and apologized, quickly. But she was already scrambling towards the driver's door, looking out, confused. Dean was _gone_ , just like that, and instead of running along the highway, the Impala was parked on the side of the road, right in front of the large sign that read “Welcome to Toledo”. It made no sense, not really. But then again, angels liked doing that, apparently. 

“What are we doing in _Toledo_?” Sam blinked, stunned.

“I'm going to assume that was Cas.” Bobby grumbled, in the back seat. “Why the hell did he drop us in Toledo? I mean, I know Cas, there's always a damn reason, but...”

Destiny shoved the driver's side door open, and crawled outside. 

“Woah, Destiny...” Sam held out his hand. “You're not supposed to get out of the car, remember, it's the only place where it's _safe_ , is inside the car...”

“I know that, geekboy,” she said, imitating her father whether she knew it or not, and clambered out to sit on the hood of the car. “I'm just going to sit outside. On the car, just not in it. I think I should still be safe.”

“Right.” He muttered, quietly.

Destiny sighed, and slumped to sit on the front edge of her father's car, and lay back across the hood, staring up at the sky. The sun was making the black metal hot, hotter than it had even been before, warmed by the engine – and she lay there, quietly, stroking her fingers idly across the design etched into the metal. She hadn't a clue what any of the symbols meant, but she loved them anyway. They were like a road map to the universe, scrawled out across the hood of a beautiful car in intricate detail. She loved it. Dean seemed displeased with it, but _she_ loved it. She closed her eyes and just relaxed on the hot metal, the sunlight beaming down on her eyelids making her see only the blood in her own veins. 

One of the other car doors opened, and Michael stepped out of the car, then settled on the hood with her. “Hi.” She murmured.

“Hey,” he said, softly, settling back. “You okay?”

“I can _officially_ say that angel mojo travel is my _very_ least favourite way to travel.” She muttered.

“Yeah,” he laughed softly. “I've always hated it.”

She sat up, then, frowning as she glanced over at Michael. “What do you mean by that?”

He blinked at her, confused. “...that I hate travelling by angel mojo?”

“You said 'I've always hated it'.” She frowned, shifting over to face him properly, glowering down at him. “Always hated it makes it sound like you've done it before. You've been fighting the angels. Not riding along with them. What are you _hiding_ , Michael?”

“I'm not _hiding_ anything, Destiny,” He sighed, shaking his head, but his expression wasn't _entirely_ believable. It was an uncomfortable please-stop-asking-please expression. “I just didn't enjoy it. Who would, it's like being _jerked_ from one place to another, only you never move.”

“You've done it before.”

“Yeah, when we were ripped out of the _motel_ and dropped down in Bobby's living room.”

Destiny hesitated.

“Why are you asking this, Destiny?” He asked, quietly, looking at her out of the corner of his eye, trying to be subtle. But it was with a pained expression that he did it. “Don't you trust me?”

“Of course I trust you, Michael,” she sighed, leaning over to rest on his shoulder.

“If there was really something wrong, or something worth... well, actually hiding, maybe that'd be different. I just... I'm freaked out, okay? About... everything. It's sort of hard to wrap your head around all this... insanity, you know?”

“Oh, I know.” She sighed softly. 

The back door opened, and Bobby stepped out of the car, frowning. “What's that?”

Destiny bolted off of Michael's shoulder, quickly, flushed. It wasn't that she didn't want to be seen with him, or anything, honestly, it was just that... well. Who really _could_ fathom the mind of teenaged girls, anyway? “What's what?”

“ _That_.” He pointed at the sky, where the clouds seemed to be literally rolling back. 

“And the sky will be rolled back as a scroll.” Sam said, quietly, standing with his hand resting on the roof of the car.

“I've heard that before,” Michael twisted to glanced back at Sam.

“Wouldn't be much of a hunter if you hadn't.” Bobby grumbled, stepping forward. “It's supposed to be the sign of the goddamn second coming.”

“...you believe in Jesus?” Michael asked, suspiciously.

“Kind of hard not to, when the name of God stops demons,” he muttered. “All we're missing is the trumpets soundin'. I thought the Apocalypse was still off the rails.”

“It was...” Sam frowned, then let out a shout of surprise when the air itself seemed to break with a blast of sound.

You could say it was a trumpet, thought it wasn't, not exactly, it was a bellow of brass and air that made the ground tremble, the air to shudder, and for the clouds to just flee the sky, leaving a sky the colour of beaten brass, then sun shining too bright. It was as though the world truly was, in that moment, ending.

Full of sound and fury.

“Oh god...” Destiny gasped. “What is this...?”

Abruptly, there was a boy standing in front of the car, with an intense, terrifying sort of expression. He had appeared out of thin air, the same way that Cas had, with as little warning. Marching towards them, he frowned, expression intense.

“ _Ben?!_ ” Sam gasped.

“Not anymore.”

It was Castiel who said that, abruptly standing in front of the young man, a long silver blade in hand, swinging it at the boy.

“Cas, no!” Dean howled.

They hadn't even noticed that Dean had arrived, but they supposed that he sort of must have arrived with Castiel. It only made sense, didn't it? Still, he looked horrified as he scrambled forward to try and stop the angel from shanking the boy.

Not that he really had to worry about it.

Ben moved even faster than Castiel did, holding up his hand, and almost lazily flicked it, like he was casually dismissing the angel, who was still running at him with that wicked looking weapon. The angel was thrown back through the air, as casually as flinging a rag doll, and he landed with a sickening sort of thud on the concrete.

“Ben!” Dean howled, horrified, scrambling towards the boy.

The young man's eyes flicked towards the hunter, and Dean stopped in his tracks, a slow look of understanding horror crossing over his face. Eyes almost blank, the young boy stepped closer to Dean, looking up at him. “I'm not Ben anymore.” He said, at last. “I am Remiel.”

“Son of a bitch, how did they _find_ us?” Michael gasped, scrambling off the hood of the car.

The moment his feet touched the ground, Ben-Remiel-whoever exactly he was, snapped his head to look straight at them. 

“He _didn't_.” Destiny gasped.

“Oh shit.” He breathed, pale, eyes wide.

“Michael! Get back in the car!” Sam shouted, reaching forward to grab the teenager's arm, tugging him back towards the car, but it was already too late, and Ben was storming quickly towards them, expression intense, steps steady and sure. “Bobby - !”

“I got it.” The older hunter had already moved around to the back of the car and dug out a shotgun. He cocked it with a note of finality and raised it to shoot. 

“No!” Dean shouted, dashing forward, throwing himself between Bobby and the boy.

“He ain't yer son anymore, Dean!” Bobby shouted, shoving the safety off, stubbornly. “I don't like this anymore than you do, but that _ain't yer son anymore_!”

“He's still _Ben_!” Dean roared.

“No, I am not.” Remiel's hand landed on Dean's shoulder, and the man screamed in pain. Light was spilling out from under the boy – the angel's – fingers, growing brighter and brighter. Dean fell heavily to his knees, teeth grit hard against the pain, refusing to cry out again, pain flickering in his eyes. “Ben is merely the shell. I am another, Dean, and unlike your son, I hold no familial or patriarchal feelings towards you. I will not feel grief for your death.”

“Dad!” Destiny screamed, scrambling off of the hood of the Impala, jerking out of Sam's grip when he strained to catch her. 

Remiel's eyes flicked to her, and the first flicker of emotion they'd seen from him so far touched his young face, for just a moment. “The first child. We have been looking for you.” The smile he gave with that statement was in no way comforting. It was frightening.

“Dad!” She ignored his statement, simply dashing forward to throw herself to the ground, pressing close to Dean's chest. He reached up, weakly, trying to push her away, but Destiny pressed in even closer, stubbornly. “Kill him, and you kill me too.”

“That is not how this works.” Remiel said, almost sarcastically patient.

“Fine.” She looked u p at him, eyes hard and narrowed as she tugged one of her arms out from around Dean's waist. There was a very hefty knife in her hand that definitely hadn't been there before, and she'd clearly snagged it from inside her father's jacket. Leaning back just slightly, pressed close to Dean still, she jabbed the point of the blade into the underside of her own jaw, lifting her head stubbornly. “Then if you kill him, I shove this knife up straight into my brain.”

“ _Destiny_!” Michael howled in horror.

“You wouldn't,” Remiel said, with narrowed eyes.

“I'm a Winchester, buddy.” She snapped, pressing the blade deeper, so that it was just this side of breaking the skin. “Way I understand it, we're sort of _known_ for doing moronic things. You don't want to push me on this. I _will_ do it.”

“You wouldn't.” He said, confidently, and the glowing under his fingers increased.

Dean let out a muffled grunt of pain from between his teeth, arching slightly. The look on his face was one of a man in extreme pain, but a man frustratingly used to torture, and absolutely determined to not show pain.

“Stop it, or no fucking first child,” Destiny snapped, and blood abruptly ran down her neck, thick and heavy and a lot more than any of them had expected, staining the collar of her t-shirt.

“I can force you to stop.” Remiel growled.

“If you could, you already would have.” She said, through grit teeth. “You're not a demon. You're a fucking _angel._ I did my homework. You can't possess me without permission, and if I run this knife straight through into my brain, then I am absolutely no use to you.” She grinned, wolfishly, and pushed the knife a little deeper, more blood spilling down her jaw. “So try and stop me all you want, wing boy, but if you don't let me – _our_ – father go, I am going to deprive you of your 'first child' very, very quickly.”

Remiel hesitated, and for a very long moment, he looked like he was going to call her bluff.

But then, as abruptly as he'd arrived, he was gone.

Dean slumped when he was released, and Destiny jerked the knife out of her jaw, quickly, panting hard. “Son of a bitch,” she gasped, as the knife clattered to the concrete and she struggled to help Dean sit up with shaking hands. “I really thought I was gonna have to stab myself in the _head_. You good at fixing mortal wounds, Cas?”

The angel frowned as he stepped closer, crouching beside them. Dean leaned into the angel's hands, quietly. “It would depend.”

“On?”

“On whether or not Remiel would have taken you with him, regardless. He is somewhat unpredictable. I would not have put such a thing past him. Dean? Can you stand?”

“I'm not a wounded bird or some shit like that, Cas, I'm fine.” The man snapped, and turned away from him to tilt Destiny's jaw up, checking on the wound. “What the _hell_ were you thinking? Did we _not_ just have a whole discussion about how you are not allowed to sacrifice yourself for me?” He demanded, frowning.

“I wasn't selling my soul, I was threatening to stab a knife in my brain.” She rolled her eyes. 

“Pretty sure that's just as bad.” Dean snapped, swiping the blood off her jaw. “You _really_ stuck yourself.”

“It's not so bad,” she shrugged. “Head wounds always bleed like crazy, even if it's just – oof!”

Michael had essentially just tackled her, and crushed the younger girl against his chest. “What the hell were you thinking?” He demanded, hands shaking as he held her. “You can't just almost stab yourself and hope an angel will save you!”

“Cas would have,” she shrugged, but didn't seem to mind being curled into him.

“We need to get back to the car,” Dean pushed himself to his feet, wincing slightly. He might have told Cas that he was fine, but he was clearly moving stiffly. “How the hell did he find us, anyway, Cas? I mean, clearly he couldn't see the actual _car_ , he didn't even know Michael was there til he stepped off of it. By the way, those were some pretty intense wards you put on that damn thing if he couldn't even _see_ him.”

“I put every carefully worded ward on that vehicle that I could manage,” Castiel muttered, ignoring Dean's protests as he slid up to his side to help him walk. “And I do not know how he found us.”

“I don't think he did it on purpose.” Bobby said, stepping closer, rifle still slung over his arm. “No hard feelings.”

“Naw, course not.” Dean smirked grimly at him. “What do you mean, he didn't do it on purpose?”

“Why'd you send us to Toledo?” Bobby turned to Castiel, instead.

“This city is well warded,” Castiel shrugged. “There is iron framework in many of the buildings, and the roads form, in many places, demon traps. Some speculate that Samuel Colt may have had a hand in the design. He was known to build many such strongholds.”

Destiny gaped up at the angel, Michael's arm still slung over her shoulder as they rested their hands on the hood. Better safer than sorry. “In _Toledo_?”

He arched a brow. “Yes.”

“But why in _Toledo_?”

“Why not?” The angel pointed out, calmly.

Destiny opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I... don't even have an argument for that point.”

“The point is,” Bobby shook his head, “Is that maybe the arch angel bunch decided to come to Toledo for the same reason _you_ decided to come to Toledo, halo boy.”

Castiel hesitated, and looked up at the sky. 

It hadn't gotten better. If anything, it was worse, as the edges of the horizon started to look like they were on fire, and there was no longer any trace of clouds. It was as though the sky was being licked with flames, and the Apocalypse had finally and totally come. In the distance, they could hear car alarms starting to go off, then the barking of dogs, like some kind of soundtrack to impending disaster. 

“That is possible,” he agreed, quietly. 

“I dunno about you, but I really think we shouldn't be here.” Sam frowned, swallowing.

“I agree.” Bobby turned to head back into the car. “Sam. You drive,” he ordered, as he slid into the front passenger seat.

Castiel helped Dean into the back, then said, almost morosely, “I should be going. I need to find out to what extent Raphael has gone.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Dean sighed, glancing over as Desting, then Michael slid into the backseat with him. “But can you at least tell us when you expect to be back?”

Destiny cleared her throat. “Ah... he's already gone.”

Dean slumped back in the seat, shaking his head. “Every friggin' time!”

  
 

\---

  
 

It was a small contingent that arrived in Toledo, really. 

Seven of the twenty four remaining arch angels stood in a rough ring, waiting, for whoever was meant to fill the obvious space in their ranks. They were some of the older children, the ones that were old enough to be standing out on their own. They were also, as a result, some of the more powerful arch angels.

“Where is Remiel?” A boy that used to be called Andrew demanded. He wasn't Andrew anymore, he was Munkir, one of the two gatekeepers of heaven, now. His 'twin', Nakir, stood by his side, wearing the skin of the hunter's daughter, Orpah.

“He will be here,” the Metatron said, firmly. It was an odd thing, when the voice of God Himself had always been a powerful man, in the past, and now wore the skin of a seven year old named Mary. She was a young slip of a thing, though she had a sombre expression, not the same joyful smile that her mother, Jess, had always had. “Remiel may be delayed by a threat, perhaps, but he would not abandon us to our task without notice.”

“Thank you for your faith in me,” Remiel stepped into the circle, frowning.

“What kept you?” Munkir demanded.

“I found the first child.”

Nakir looked up sharply. “You did? Well, where is she? Raphael is very anxious to gain Michael his vessel.”

“I don't have her.” Remiel looked very displeased by this development. “She was... more resourceful than I had given her credit for. In the end, I chose to err on the side of not damaging our brother's vessel.”

“You are not likely to do such a thing.” Jeremial, once a bright sunny little boy named Jack, frowned. 

“No. But she was.” Remiel grumbled.

“It is of no consequence,” Munkir said, dismissively. “The first child will eventually join her kin, and the Winchester family will be reunited. So it has been written, so it shall be. Now. We met here for a reason, brothers.”

“So we did.” Nakir agreed, holding out her hands, quietly. 

One by one, the eight angels linked hands, and Jememial murmured, “Time to unite, brothers, to test our strength.”

“And the strength of the town.” The Metatron suggested, with a slight smirk.

“Hn.” Remiel shook his head. “Thus far, I am not impressed.”

Toledo had a warning, in a sense. After all, it wasn't every day that the clouds were rolled back as a scroll and the sky looked like it was on fire. In fact, it was rare that the whole city would get downright Biblical. So they should have known, should have thought, perhaps, that all the signs of impending doom and destruction would be motivation enough, perhaps, to get the hell out of Dodge. But no, most people went “Bad weather today, ain't it?”, a few headed to their basements just in case, and a few more called their pastor or showed up at their synagogue or got down on bended knee, and prayed for what they were sure was the end.

They were, of course, the most correct.

Toledo was engulfed in a firey rage of sound and fury, madness and fire, and in the span of maybe minutes, the town that Castiel had described as a stronghold against demons was gone.

  
 

\---

  
 

“Holy shit.” Destiny breathed.

Bobby and Sam were sleeping in the front seat, sort of just leaning back in their seats and trying to get some rest at least despite the weirdness of sleeping in the car. Michael was curled in against the window beside her, forehead smushed against it as he snore, softly. Surrounded by sleeping hunters, Destiny had been reading the news, quietly, on her Blackberry. She was starting to catch onto the idea that noticing the weird and unusual in the news – and then trying to figure it out – was sort of the Winchester place in the world.

Dean shifted slightly beside her, and asked quietly, “What is it?”

She looked up, sharply, and flushed. “Sorry, I – I thought you were sleeping.”

“Naw. I was just thinking. What is it?”

Destiny gnawed at her lower lip for a moment, looking torn, then blurted out, “Toledo's gone.”

He blinked at her. “Gone?”

Nodding, she handed her phone over with shaking hands. “Look at this. About fifteen minutes after Cas... mojo'd us away, or whatever he did, the whole city exploded. I mean, looking at the photos and everything... scientists are saying it's like a nuclear bomb went off.”

He whistled, lowly. “Death toll?”

“Almost three hundred thousand.” She murmured. “The entire city's population.”

“Holy shit.” He repeated her earlier statement.

They sat there in silence for a very long few minutes, a sort of companionable silence, a quiet solidarity as they both tried to be there for the other without words, saying wit their mutual silence what they weren't able to say with words. It was Destiny that broke the silence again, though. “Do you really think it was the angels who... you know... blew up Toledo?”

“Who else would it be?”

“But, I mean... angels are supposed to be the good guys!”

Dean snorted softly, and lay his arm over the back of the bench seat, looking down at his daughter. “Let me explain something to you, Destiny. Angels aren't the good guys. They're dicks.”

“What about Cas?”

“He's a dick too. But he's an exception to the usual angel rule.” Dean hesitated. “Sometimes. Mostly he's still very much of a dick. But he also believes in free will, not being a slave to destiny – no offence or anything – or the rules or whatever else. He helped us thwart the apocalypse, so as far as I'm concerned, Cas is good people. A dick person, but a good one, anyway.”

“Hm.” She considered that for a moment, then said bluntly, “You guys gotten over yourselves and made out, yet?”

Dean gaped at her. 

“What?” She laughed. “You're _so_ obvious, dad. Do you mind if I... _call_ you dad?”

He huffed, shaking his head. “No, I guess not, though it makes me feel damn _old_. But seriously. _Obvious_?”

“Yeah.” She laughed softly, trying to not wake the others, but still grinned up at him. “He always stands real close to you, and watches your ever movement, and any time anything comes up, first thing you do is look for Castiel. And did you know he told Sam you two share a 'profound bond'?” She giggled. “I mean, c'mon, dad, I may be only a teenager, but I'm a teenager with _eyes_.”

Dean groaned softly. “I don't think my love life is any of your business, young lady.”

“Aha.” She smirked. “You used the L-word.”

“Oi.” Dean ruffled her hair. “No.”

“Hey. I'm your daughter. I got fifteen years of ribbing and 'oh _dads_ ' to get in, remember? So expect the brattiness at least for now, yes? So what do we do about Toledo?”

“What do you mean?” He frowned.

“Well, angels blew it up! What do we do?” Destiny demanded.

“ _Do_? We can't _do_ anything.” Dean sighed heavily, and pulled his daughter closer to his side, quietly. “Look, Destiny, I get that you want to make it right. Trust me, if I could, i'd be trying to do the same. But the angels – _especially_ the arch angels, well, they have powers us mere mortals could never hope to get. They can blow up cities and we can't do shit about it. They're not just... fluffy winged cherubs like in the paintings, Destiny, angels are the warriors of God, and the arch-angels, well, they're the Generals in that army. They're powerful, they're angry, and they're damn hard to kill. Only another angel can do it, and only with knives like that one Cas had. They're not monsters or _just_ some creature with powers. They're powerful and if they get their hands on you, Destiny, they _will_ make you one of the vessels, just like Ben was.”

“But they have to get permission to possess,” Destiny frowned. 

“Sure,” Dean murmured. “But they're also not above fighting dirty to _get_ that permission.”

“Like... how dirty?”

“Like threatening to remove Sammy's _lungs_ if I didn't say yes.” Dean muttered. On seeing her horrified expression, he murmured, “Angels are sort of... slaves to prophesy. They were told eons ago that the world would end in fire and that the kingdom of Heaven would then rule. So they figure 'what God says is what goes', so they're working ot make the prophesy come true. They sort of see it as their – well, their holy mission, if you will. And come hell or high water, the angels will make that prophesy come true.”

“But Cas isn't - “

“Cas is an exception to a rather sturdy rule.” He murmured, quietly. “So don't base your knowledge of angels on Cas. He can be just as much a dick as them, though, push comes to shove...”

“I don't believe you.” She snorted.

“Oh yeah? I said _yes_ , Destiny. I said that they could make me a Dean hand puppet. And Cas found out.”

“So?” Destiny asked, not seeing the big deal.

“So. He had defied heaven and God to try and save me from having to do this very thing. When he found out, he decided to beat some sense into me. Literally.” He hesitated, touching his jaw in remembrance. “Angels hit hard, by the way.”

She blinked at him, then snorted. “Well, you sort of deserved it for saying yes.”

He rolled his eyes. “In the future, a fiuture where I never said yes, he fell. And became an orgy loving druggie hippie idiot. That my future self got killed.”

She blinked at him. “Okay, aside from the killing bit, that sounds awesome.”

“Cas! Orgies!”

“Jealous?” She asked, blithely.

Dean spluttered.

She grinned, knowingly. “Besides, that was an alternate maybe possible future. That's like... a _staple_ of science fiction series. It's non-valid for demonstrations of douchbaggery.”

He frowned. “Two weeks ago, he had time changed so that the Titanic didn't sink.”

Destiny rolled her eyes. “Sounds like a hero. Besides, what are you talking about? The Titanic sank. I remember studying it in school, watching that horrible old DiCaprio movie. Our teacher fast forwarded through all the bits with boob.”

“It sank again because Cas fixed time.” He sighed. “Fate was one-by-one killing off all the descendents of people who should have died on the boat.”

“Ouch.” She winced. “But why did he unsink the unsinkable boat, anyway?”

“Cas is... building up to a war in heaven. With Raphael.” He took a deep breath. “And the weapons they need aren't exactly conventional. He needs things like souls. Human souls preferred, monster souls will do in a pinch.”

“So what, they're pitching people at each other?”

“No. A soul has power.” He heistated. “Every person in the world has a... a spiritual nuclear bomb inside them. That's their soul. If you can harness them...” He whistled. “I think that's what happened in Toledo. The arch angels pulled all the soul's pins at once, like spiritual grenades, and _boom_ , soul explosion. Physical damage, and if you asked Cas, I bet the whole crater that used to be there is scarred spiritually, too. It's powerful. So he unsank the Titanic to create thousands of souls that wouldn't have existed otherwise. More ammo for their war marchine.”

“That's... kind of terrifyingly awesome and awful at the same time.”

“Yeah.” He snorted softly. “The way Cas is so desperate to win this war and all, I sometimes wonder if he went back in time and made sure Adam was born, or something.”

“Adam?”

“Yeah, my kid brother, he ended up being Michael's vessel instead of me...” Dean trailed off, brows furrowed.

“Dad...?”

“Son of a - “ Dean gasped, then slammed the car door open.

“Dad! Hand on the car!” Destiny hollered, panicked, and bolted out of the car after him. “Or they can find you!”

“I want them to find me!” He yelled back, storming out into the field they were parked in. “Castiel! Get your feathery ass down here _now_!”

“Dad, get back in the car...” Destiny scrambled after him.

“What the hell is going on?” Bobby demanded, frowning as he leaned on the car, rubbing at his eyes, sleepily. “I finally got to sleep and you two idjits are screaming... balls.”

“I'll tell you what's going on.” Dean snapped. “Cas decided to make more Winchesters.”

Michael yawned. “Dean... he's a _guy_.”

“No. Not like that.” Dean met Sam's eyes when his brother climbed out of the driver's seat, stiffly. “Like the Titanic, Sam.”

Sam's eyes widened. “He wouldn't, not after...”

“He so friggin' _would_.” He snapped, clearly furious, and stamped his foot. “I don't care if you're in the middle of the biggest fucking battle of your life, put down the sword and get in here, you owe me a fucking - “

“This is not a good _time_ , Dean.” Castiel said tightly, appearing abruptly right behind the man's shoulder.

Dean spun to face him, and from the look on his face, the angel was lucky that Dean didn't just sock him. (Destiny and Micahel both had no way of knowing that this was mostly because Dean had tried socking Castiel before, and it never ended well – it ended in pain and broken knuckles.) “You did it, didn't you? You _meddled_!”

“You're going to have to give me more detail than simply 'meddling', Dean.” The angel said with an almost frighteningly calm expression, but there was something just not quite _right_ about the way he looked back at him. It was a sort of stubborn, obstinate, child-caught-doing-something-bad look. “I have been in the middle of a war. I have been rather wrapped up in what I have been doing. So you are going to have to be more specific. What exactly have I been _meddling_ in?”

“The children.” He snapped. “Did you _meddle_ with the children?”

Castiel frowned, and glanced at Michael. “Does that mean you told him?”

Dean seemed to straighten up slightly, and turned to face the teenager, crossing his arms. “...you knew about this?”

“I don't... uh...” Michael fumbled, running his hand through his hair, sheepishly, and cleared his throat. “Look, I'm sorry! I know I shouldn't have hid from them that I knew the angels were coming to get the kids, and I know I should've said something about the fact that I'd been working with you, but – I'm sorry!”

They stood there in silence for a long few moments, then Destiny howled, “You _knew_ about this?!”

He hesitated, eyes widening as he realized what he'd just said. “Shit.”

Storming back towards her friend, Destiny snarled, “You _were_ hiding something from me! You were hiding the fact that you were working with _Cas_ and – and – wait.” She hesitated, a little confused, now. “Okay, now I'm confused again. What exactly _were_ you hiding, anyway? Now I'm confused.”

Michael sighed heavily, sitting on the front of the hood, heavily, closing his eyes. “Fuck.”

“An explanation, _please_?” Bobby snapped.

Castiel stepped forward, then, striding forward to beside the car, leaning on the side of it for a moment. It was like it was a heavy weight pressing down on him, and despite his usual firm resolve, now he was weak. Like it was a genuine burden, to just be there, talking to them. He sighed, slumping against the side of the car, and considered them all. “I knew about the children before I told you, Dean. I contacted Michael, who I had discovered was, in fact, a boy you had encountered before. He was hunting, though inexpertly, and I asked him to be my liaison in this matter. He was finding the children for me, gathering them in one place. But I asked him to not tell you.”

“Why?” Sam asked, confused. 

“I was concerned that if you knew, you would try to find your children.” Castiel said, quietly. “Which you did. By the way. And as I had rather expected, the angels now have them. It was what I was afraid of, so it was why I didn't say anything. Because I feared that the very thing that _did_ happen _would_.”

“Hey, don't turn this on _us_.” Dean snapped. “You knew!”

Castiel frowned. “I did. And what good would it have done, if I _had_ told you?”

“You would have given me a chance to figure it out earlier, for one.” Dean growled, stepping closer to the angel. There was more than just betrayal of the issue about the children in his eyes. This was betrayal of a much deeper level. “You meddled. The children, Cas. What is this, the Titanic all over again?”

“But... you said he made the Titanic not sink so there would be extra souls,” Destiny said slowly.

“And a Winchester soul seems to be worth more than the regular one out there in that market you sons of bitches have got going,” Dean snarled, jabbing Castiel in the chest.

The angel snatched Dean's hand, meeting him glare for glare – and not letting go of the other's hand, not even when Dean tugged. He seemed bound and determined to hold him in place, to make him listen. “I let many things slide, Dean Winchester, because of our _bond_. But do not presume to understand all of my motives. I am not your _pet_ angel, I am your _equal_. Listen to me. I would _not_ do such a thing. You are more important to me than _any_ possible extra souls. And I would never risk bringing the Winchester line back more than it already is, because I know what happens when heaven gets their hands on Winchesters. I did not do this thing. But yes. Meddling _has_ been done.”

“If not by you, then by who?” Dean frowned, displeased. 

“Raphael, I believe.” He sighed. 

“Well shit. Of course he'd be the one who would do that... fuck.” Dean threw up his arms. “Son of a... well, what do we do _now_?”

“Can you just _fix_ it?” Sam demanded.

“Wait! Wait!” Destiny burst forward before Castiel had a chance to say anything. “Wait. I have to know. Exactly. I have to know exactly. What meddling was done. Exactly.”

Castiel considered her for a long moment, then said softly, “Raphael went back in time, and found every single woman that either Winchester brother had ever... had relations with. And he meddled with birth control. If any had been used, that is. He played with timing and spacing, and... the results are the children you have been seeing.”

She paled. “...so I don't exist.”

Michael flushed. “You exist! You definitely exist! Look, you're right there, right in front of me!”

“I'm not _supposed_ to exist, Michael!” Destiny howled. “If Castiel fixes it, if he puts everything back to normal – I won't _exist_ anymore! I am not supposed to be here, so if he fixes everything then I won't exist anymore! If he goes back in time and fixes it so that Raphael didn't actually interfere then I just _stop existing_! I don't want to stop existing! I just – I just want to exist! He can't like.... fix _some_ of it, and not fix all of it! I don't want to stop existing!”

“It's a moot point, anyway.” Castiel held up his hands. “I cannot undo this. Raphael is simply too powerful. I cannot do it.”

“But it's gotta be undone, don't it?” Bobby demanded. 

“I don't wanna be undone!” 

“Going back to not existing isn't the same as dying, Destiny...” Sam tried, awkwardly.

“What if someone told _you_ you were about to cease to exist?!” Destiny roared, furiously. “Show on the other foot, and you'd be begging Cas to not fix the past, too! I don't _want_ to cease to exist! I like existing! I'm _good_ at it, even!”

“You're not _going_ to cease to exist.” Michael stepped in, quickly, tugging Destiny against his chest, hugging her tightly. She began to shake in his arms. “You heard Cas. We can't 'fi' it. You'll be fine, Destiny.”

Dean shook his head. “But it's not that simple...”

“Dean.” Bobby said sharply.

“ _What?”_

“Not in front of your _daughter_!”

“But I'm not _really_ his daughter!” Destiny howled, spinning in Michael's arms to look up at them all. Her eyes were red, and there were tears streaming down her cheeks. She looked an absolute mess. “I don't really exist, do I, Cas said so. If Raphael hadn't gone back in time, then my mom could sleep with Dean back when she was sixteen and who the hell would have cared? Maybe it would be better if they didn't have the first child to chase anymore.”

Castiel's head snapped back up. “What did you call yourself?”

She blinked at him, confused. “The... first child?”

“I have to go,” the angel said, abruptly, pushing past Destiny and Michael, taking the front of Dean's shirt in his hand. “Take the others, keep them in the car. Drive as far and as fast as you can. Get as far as you can. Do _not_ allow Destiny out of the car. And get as far away from Chicago and the gate as you can.”

“Cas, what - ?”

“The first child is Michael's intended vessel.” He said, intently, unsurprised when Dean paled. “I trust you to keep this from happening?”

“I am _not_ letting them have her.” He growled.

“Good.” The angel smiled faintly, then abruptly pressed his lips firmly to Dean's, kissing him furiously. The Winchester didn't argue, though, he just whimpered slightly – in a manly fashion, naturally – and clutched at Cas' jacket. The other cupped the back of his head as he seemed to ravage his mouth, then abruptly Cas was gone and Dean was left standing there looking slightly awkward. He cleared his throat, and straightened up slightly, flushed when he realized the way that Sam and Bobby were gaping at him like he'd just grown another head. 

“What?” He demanded, sort of defensively.

“It's about friggin' _time_ ,” Destiny muttered, then snapped, “Well, are we all just standing around waiting for Michael to show up and want to make me into a meat suit? Let's _go_!”

  
 

\---

  
 

“Sometimes it feels like we spend more time stopped than actually driving,” Destiny murmured. 

“You're kidding me, right?” Michael snorted, stretching, wincing. He crawled out onto the front of the Impala, slowly, cracking his shoulders, wincing again. “We just drove for like sixteen hours straight. My whole body _aches_ , I feel like my every joint is on fire. If our life was a movie, or something, you would find that all the _driving_ bits are boring as fuck, so there would _be_ no driving bits in the movie, unless they put them to an awesome eighties montage of music, or something. So because that part of the movie would be _intensely_ boring, said movie would only actually focus on the parts _between_ the driving, you know, the parts where we'd be sitting out on the hood and watching the stars, not on the bad boring bits.”

“Are you saying our life is a movie?” She snickered, crossing her arms over her chest, relaxing back into the hood, quietly. Everyone else was still inside, presumably sleeping, but she was pretty sure that they were actually inside talking about her, about the other Winchester babies. What the hell were they going to do about this, anyway? 

“I'm saying our life would make for a really shitty movie, actually.” He snorted. 

She laughed, eagerly. “Maybe.”

“At least we'd have some hot co-stars.” He smirked, leaning back on the windshield beside her, tapping the tattoo like designs on the hood. “Your dad ain't a bad looking man, even.”

“Oh god, you have such a man-crush on my father,” Destiny laughed.

“I do not!” He squawked.

“You so do,” she ribbed him, laughing as she nudged his shoulder, snickering. “I get it, you got a thing for Winchesters. You just drool for the thought of finally getting yourself a fine piece of Winchester ass. So now that you can't get ahold of my _dad's,_ you're moving onto the next best thing with l'il ol' Destiny Winchester.”

“You are a twisted bitch, sometimes,” he shorted, shaking his head, but folded his arms behind his head.

“What do you suppose they're talking about in there?” she murmured, quietly.

“In where? Heaven?” 

“In the car, fruitcake.” She rolled her eyes, but it was with a soft smile that she said it. “What are they talking about inside the car?”

“Maybe about the fact that the two resident teenagers aren't _inside_ the car like they're supposed to be, but are rather _on_ the car, talking about what they're talking about inside?” He smirked. “Or they're wondering why the hell we aren't making out already. It kind of sounds like the kind of thing they'd be expecting us to be doing right about now. I mean, we _are_ teenagers.”

“Not every teenager feels the need to make out constantly.” She smirked. “Though if you asked me, I wouldn't say no.”

Michael snorted.

“Yeah, I know, I'm pretty awesome, huh?” She smirked slightly, and curled closer to him, quietly, resting her head on his shoulder as they looked up at the stars. “Awesome enough that I really don't like the idea of... not.”

“Not being awesome?” He asked, lightly, stroking her back.

“Of not _being_. I don't want to stop existing.” Destiny murmured, curling closer to him again, resting her hand on his stomach. Michael was warm, and the night was chilly, so she pressed slightly closer and hoped to all hell that she'd feel better if she did. “You know how that _feels_ , to know that at any moment, you might... stop being? Stop feeling, stop knowing, stop thinking... stop existing. It's the most basic thing in the universe, existing, and I wasn't even supposed to do _that_. I was never supposed to be a teenager, or a toddler, or anything. I was never meant to exist. Ever. I'm just supposed to be... nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'm not meant to be. And I'm... I'm thinking....”

“Destiny?”

“Am I selfish?” She whispered.

“ _Selfish_?” He repeated.

“Yeah.” Destiny took a deep breath, closing her eyes, and murmured, “I'm not supposed to be alive, Michael. I'm only alive because someone interred with time and space and I'm not supposed to be here. So if I am... if I'm here... it's because of meddling. And because of that meddling, there are arch angels running around in Winchester bodies. And because I keep saying 'no, don't fix things, I don't want to die', the world is going to end in fire. Again.”

Michael shifted to sit up properly, tugging Destiny right into his lap, curling her against his chest, stroking her hair as he held her close. “Destiny, no... no. It's not selfish to want to be _alive_.”

“But my being alive means the world is going to burn...” she whispered, whimpering softly. She was starting to cry again, clutching at his shirt.

“No. _No_. You deserve to live as much as anyone!”

“But if I live...”

“You deserve to live.” He said, firmly. “Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Those angels will do _anything_ to get you, they want you to be their first child and all that, but... dammit, we can keep you safe...”

“What, we're going to run forever?”

Michael shook his head. “We can run until Castiel can find a way to save us... maybe build us a full stronghold or something, something better than just the car, and he can find a way to stop the arch angels. He's good at doing that...”

“Michael... that's not realistic.” Destiny sighed, whimpering slightly. 

“We can find a way to make it safe, Destiny!”

“And what, spend the rest of my life in a basement fortress somewhere while the arch angels blow up the cities one by one by one until I finally climb out of the basement and shout 'okay, angels, take me now!'? I can't live like that, Michael! We have to face them. We have to face the angels, and maybe if we play our cards right... we can get Raphael to fix things.”

“I don't want to _lose_ you, Destiny. I am _not_ going to lose you.” He said, firmly, but his hands were trembling.

“Michael...” she pulled back, looking up at him, tear tracks in wet slick lines on her cheeks, and reached up to cup his jaw, gently. “I never existed for you to lose.”

But she still leaned up, pressing her lips very softly to his, eyes closed.

  
 

\---

  
 

“I don't like this plan.” Dean said, jaw tight.

“It's the only plan, dad,” Destiny said softly, shaking her head. “I mean, the world isn't going to last if there are twenty something Winchester arch angels running around. The apocalypse was thwarted once, it needs to be thwarted again. You told me about it, remember? Sam gave himself up on a chance that he could beat Lucifer... and yeah, maybe it didn't work, but it sort of did later, didn't it? You ended the end of the world once. We have to do it again, dad. So this is the only plan.”

“I don't like the idea of _begging_ Raphael to fix what he created!”

“Neither do I,” she admitted, flushed, and slid her arm through his, quietly, hugging his arm for a moment. “I'm sorry I won't exist anymore... if you find a way to remember me, you know... remember me, you know?”

“Hey. Of all the almost kids I've ever had... you're definitely one of them,” he joked, lamely.

Destiny laughed softly, smiling up at him, faintly, then murmured, “Does it hurt?”

“Does what hurt?”

“Being possessed by an angel.” She cleared her throat, glancing around the small graveyard, nervously. It was a haunting sort of place, really, even though it was the middle of the afternoon and everything should have been fine. Yes, it was a graveyard, and those seemed to really bother some people, but this was a quaint little one, with trees and a field of grass beyond the little graves. It was a beautiful little place, and if they were there for any reason other than to confront a group of arch angels that wanted to use them as their instruments to end the world, maybe they would have liked this place a little more. But considering the circumstances... well. It wasn't a terribly peaceful place to rest in peace, was it?

“I don't know,” Dean admitted, stroking her hair back, gently. 

“This is where the cage opened, isn't it?” Destiny asked softly, still leaning on the front of the Impala as she looked up at her father. “This is where it happened. Sam fell into hell and Michael went with him.”

“This is the place,” Dean agreed, and sighed softly. 

“They're not expecting us to just show up here, are they?” she murmured, quietly. “I mean, they're expecting us to run and run and run, right? So they won't be waiting for us.”

“Well, if we get off the car, they're going to be able tell we're here.” Dean smirked slightly. “I don't want to do this, Destiny. We can find another way, we're _good_ at finding other ways...”

“We talked about this, remember? This is the only way.” She stood up on her tip toes, and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for everything, dad. But at this point... it's my job, now. Someone's gotta take the torch for the next generation, right? So take care of yourself... let me finish the job.”

Destiny smiled, softly, and stepped back from the car.

“So you've decided to stop cowering like a child.”

She spun, and took a deep breath when she spotted the woman standing in the centre of the field. The same woman that had attacked her at the school, the woman that had tried to take her away. The arch angel that wanted to make her into a body for Michael, another of the arch angels. “So you must be Raphael. I gotta say, I sorta expected you to be a man.”

“You can thank your family for that.” She said, bitterly, stepping slightly closer.

“Don't come any closer.” Destiny said, sharply. “I didn't come to just hand myself over to you, I came to talk. To make a deal.”

“I don't work in deals,” Raphael said, sharply.

“Well, either you work in deals, or I go back to hiding.” She said, firmly. “I know it's not much of a life, but I can do it. And I know you've got tons more arch angels now, all my baby brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews... but you don't have Michael. And the way I understand it, you actually need Michael. Which means you need a suitable vessel for him, and I got one, right here.” 

“Trying to blackmail me? An arch angel?”

“I wanna make a _deal_ , I said. I want you to let my dad and Sam, and Bobby... and Michael – the other Michael, not the angel – I want you to let them go. Free. Without any punishment, or nothing. We got it? We can do that?”

“And you'll say yes.” Raphael smirked, considering her for a moment.

“Well... I kinda wanna see the others first.” She hesitated. “The other kids. The other arch angels, I guess. Can I see them? I mean... _before_ I join their ranks?”

“...that could be arranged.” 

One by one by one, suddenly there were children standing in a ring around the little clearing Destiny had been standing in, making a circle in which Raphael stood just inside, and Destiny was most definitely in the ranks. Some weren't even really “standing”, some of them were too young, too small to stand, and those little ones were sitting or kneeling on the dirt, but something in their faces didn't look infantile anymore. They didn't look like babies, even though physically they clearly were. Their eyes just didn't show the innocence of children, they showed an eons old intelligence, the serious wisdom of being something other than just babies. Ben – or Remiel – was there, and so was the girl she remembered from the photo Sam had shown her, little Mary. His girlfriend's daughter. Little ones, so many children... 

“This is _sick_.” Destiny said, swallowing. “Look at them. _Babies_. How old is that one, three months?”

Raphael smirked. “You won't think so once you are Michael.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” She swallowed, crossing her arms as she considered the children. The other children. It wasn't like she was somehow the one voice of reason in the midst of all of this. This was all insane. 

“We will let your family go.” Raphael said, finally. “But not until you say yes.”

“Michael's still in the cage, remember?” Destiny frowned, looking up at the angel. “But I'll say it. Yes. I'll take Michael. He can have my body. I'll be his vessel.”

“Then let it be done.” The angel said, firmly, and the ground began to move. It was like it had started falling in on itself, somehow, so much so that Destiny sort of wanted to call it a “yawning maw”, which was a term she had read in a book years ago, to describe the opening to the mouth of hell. This, she figured, was _definitely_ a mouth to hell. Oh sure, she'd heard the explanation, that it was the cage that Lucifer and Michael – and for awhile – Sam were in. That it was like a pocket dimension of hell, not hell itself, but it looked pretty hellish from where she was. And though she knew the plan was to get Michael out of there, not put her in there, it was hard to think that way when said “yawning maw” was opening up like the saarlac pit in front of you.

There was a bright light starting to rise from the hole, and Destiny hoped, for the sake of what little was left of their world, that it was Michael that was coming out, and not Lucifer.

The light flared, and Destiny took a step back. “Oh _shit..._ ”

She screamed, when the light flared in her eyes, and she bent backwards, as though her body couldn't take what was being crammed into it, and that sort of made sense. After all, a human body is really only made to contain a human body, not a human soul and the entirely of being of a massive arch angel. Maybe this was why arch angels usually burned out their hosts. There was simply too _much_ to them. They were too powerful. 

But as the light faded, and the girl straightened slightly, Dean stepped off of the bumper of the Impala.

Raphael's head snapped to the eldest living Winchester, stunned. “Where did you - “

“You ain't taking my kids from me, bitch. Even if you gave them in the first place.” He smirked, grimly, and dropped his zippo, which was burning, brightly.

A ring of fire flared up around them, spreading flames in a ring around the entire circle of arch angels, fast. It moved faster than fire normally would, but of course it did, it was surrounding them in a ring of holy oil, the only thing that would hold them – and not forever, but it would hold them long enough for what Dean had needed it for. 

Destiny – the new host for Michael – lifted her head, and said, “I'm going to kill you, Raphael.”

The angel frowned, brows furrowed. “What are you talking about, Michael?”

“Michael's not here yet.” 

Destiny shook her right arm, and a long silver blade dropped out of her sleeve, falling into her hand. It wasn't as neat as it might have been in a movie, say, or something like that. It just sort of tumbled into her palm, clumsily, and she moved forward, lifting the blade to slam it up into Raphael – and froze, a stunned look in her eyes.

“And Michael takes control.” Raphael smirked. “You actually had me worried for a moment, Destiny. Welcome back, my brother.”

Her body twitched, strangely, and she tightened her jaw before growling, through gritted teeth, “Not... quite... Michael... yet... bitch...”

“Stop resisting, Destiny. This is your fate. To be the vessel of our champion in the ending of the world.”

“Bullshit.” She laughed, teeth still gritted tightly, and held the massive knife, Castiel's angel blade, up, slowly. “I learned from the very best. My father taught me... about... the value... of free will...” She tightened her grip on the blade's handle. “And _sacrifice_.”

And with that, she turned the blade around, and did exactly what she had threatened to do, the other day – and slammed the angel blade up through the base of her own jaw, and up into her brain.

“ _No_!” Dean roared, in horror. 

“Michael!” Raphael cried out, eyes wide.

“ _Destiny_!?” Her father shoved two of the angels – Munkir and Nakir, not that he cared at that moment – aside, and leapt over the circle of flames, not even caring that his pants got singed as he did, and grabbed Destiny's shoulders, curling his fingers over hers, which were still curled around the blade, and jerked the massive silver knife out of her head. Destiny's body jerked, and her eyes rolled back into her head before light flared out of them – and out of her wounds, as light poured out of her like blood might have, normally, and Dean buried his face in her shoulder as he held his daughter, howling as the clearing lit up as though the sun had stopped shining and it had become night and she had somehow become a spotlight. 

Then she went limp in his arms, and Dean cried, “No, son of a – you promised not to - “

There were massive burn marks spread across the ground, now, in the shape of massive wings, a fourteen, sixteen foot wingspan. Michael was dead.

And so was Destiny.

As one, a howl of pain rose from the other angels, bar Raphael, and the arch angels rushed forward, crowding around Dean and Destiny. Chubby little fingers reached out to touch her skin, her face, her hair, and toddlers and children and preteens and babies cried and sobbed as they touched her, trying to reach her, wailing.

“This – this was not the plan...” Raphael stepped back, shaking her head. For once, the calm, steady, even arch angel looked ruffled, confused. 

“I said I hated this plan,” Dean whispered, pushing her hair off of her face with shaking hands, tears running down his cheek. “Oh Destiny... you promised not to sacrifice yourself...”

Remiel pressed closer, and whispered, “This is unacceptable.”

“Blame Raphael.” Dean snarled, clutching his daughter close to this chest. “He's the one who meddled.”

The angel in the little boy's body narrowed his eyes for a moment, then stood, slowly, turning to face the only other adult in the ring. “Raphael. Is this true?”

“Remiel.” She lifted her jaw. “This is not - “

“Is. This. True.” He growled, squeezing his fists tightly, furious. Some of the other children stood, behind him, slowly, glowering up at the arch angel. “Did you meddle? Did you do this?”

“I gave you your vessel.” She said, fiercely.

“You gave us nothing.” Remiel took a step back. “Except for creating the situation in which Michael was torn from us.”

Nakir touched Remiel's shoulder, lightly. “You can feel it in the past. Raphael created us.”

“Then Raphael is the creator of this.” He motioned towards the scene behind them, where Dean still cradled Destiny's still body, watching them warily, like he wasn't sure what to make of this moment. Several of the youngest vessels were still surrounding the body, hands on her arms, her hair, her face, touching her still body lightly, just trying to reach her. “We must undo this.”

Munkir had stepped up beside his twin, and nodded, sharply. “It will be undone.”

“ _No_ ,” Raphael started, stepping closer. 

“It. Will. Be. Undone.” Remiel said again, sharply, and white light flared across the graveyard.

  
 

\---

  
 

Dean bolted up in bed, gasping, and froze, confused. 

It was just a regular little motel room he was in, in one of the two beds, and his brother was still curled up in the other bed, hugging a pillow and snoring softly. He bolted out of the bed, darting to the large window at the front of the little room, and ripped the curtains aside, peering down at his Impala, which sat right in front of the room, quietly, normally. There were no carvings in the hood, everything looked... normal. 

He let out a long breath, lowering the curtains back into place, and ran his hand through his hair. “...shit. I guess I must have... dreamed it... or something.”

Sam shifted in the other bed, and slowly sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Dean?”

“Yeah, I'm here, Sammy.”

He sat up, fully, groaning softly. “What's going on? Why aren't we in the car? They can see us if we're not in the car...”

Dean's eyes widened. “...what do you remember, Sam?”

“The children... vessels...”

He sat heavily on his bed, eyes wide as he stared at his brother. “Son of a bitch, I thought maybe I'd dreamed that... did that actually happen? There's no mark on the car...”

“I didn't see the end of the fight, I was out by the gates... what happened?”

“...Remiel said he was going to undo it.” Realization crossed Dean's face, and he scrambled to his feet again. “Cas! Cas, are you there, I need to - !”

“Remiel fixed it.”

He spun, startled, to face the angel, who was standing by the window he'd just checked, quietly. “He did?!”

“Remiel travelled through time again, and undid every interference that Raphael had done.” He said, quietly, stepping closer to Dean, and abruptly pressed into the other man's chest, pressing his forehead against Dean's collarbone. “He undid things. He fixed it.”

Dean slowly lifted his arms, curling Castiel closer, quietly.

“So Mary...” Sam asked, standing up.

“She never existed before, Sam.” The angel said, quietly. “So just as before, she doesn't exist.”

He slumped back to sit on the bed, bonelessly. “...oh.”

“I'm sorry.” He sighed, and lifted his head off of Dean's chest. “I know you liked the idea of a part of Jess being alive, still. I am sorry. I asked him to leave your memories of the situation, though. I thought... perhaps... you might prefer to remember your children, rather than forgetting they ever existed.”

Sam cleared his throat, and nodded, quietly, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Thank you, Cas.”

“Yeah.” Dean murmured, stroking the angel's back, quietly. 

“I'm sorry.” Castiel said again, fingers still curled in Dean's shirt, and breathed, “I never would have done this...”

“I know,” he murmured, quietly.

They moved through the rest of the day like they were walking about in some kind of haze, really. Sam tried to make conversation, lightly, but Dean was having some difficulty keeping up his half of the conversation. It was hard to approach, really. He knew that none of the many children actually existed – except for Ben, of course. He'd called Lisa, just to make sure, but yeah, Ben was fine. He didn't really know why, in that alternate timeline, or whatever it was, he hadn't stayed with Lisa and Ben for a year, just a night or two, but he wondered, now, if that other timeline self hadn't had the right idea. It would have been easier, now, knowing that Ben really _was_ his son. 

Castiel had stayed around longer than he'd expected him to, and when he'd left, it was only with the promise that he'd be back later. Apparently whatever it was he and Cas had started in that alternate timeline, it was staying started. He didn't mind... was a bit of a challenge, that way.

He was just carrying his bag into the motel room they were staying at that night when his phone rang in his pocket.

Dean sighed, and reached into his pocket, flicking his phone on. “Hello?”

There was a moment of silence on the other line, then slowly, the person on the other end of the line said, “...dad?”

Dean stopped, eyes widening. “...Destiny?”

 


End file.
